The Para teachers of the State who were protesting for over two months demanding regularisation of their services and pay hike called off their strike on the 61st day, on Thursday, after a three-hour meeting with the high-level panel headed by HRD Minister Neera Yadav.
A delegation of para teachers was called to meet the high level committee headed by the HRD Minister to discuss their demands.
Yadav and the panel members, including officials of School Education and Literacy department, agreed to most of the demands of para teachers, including increase in honorarium and formation of a regulation for regularisation of their jobs.
The committee assured the para teachers that the honorarium would be increased to maximum of Rs 15,000 and minimum of Rs 10,000.
Also, the Government has agreed to form a regulation to regularise the jobs of para teachers within three months.
During the two month long strike, ten para teachers succumbed to cold weather, injuries, or health problems. The para teachers demanded a compensation of Rs 5 lakh for the kin of all the para teachers who lost their lives but a consensus was made on Rs 2 lakh per family.
However, the demand of para teachers to be paid honorarium during the period of strike was not accepted by the Government.
While the department had accepted most of the demands, the talks continued longer than expected as the para teachers demanded written acceptance from the Government.
The strike was called off only after a letter was given to them.Bajrang Prasad, vice president of Ekikrit Para Shikshak Sangharsh Morcha said, “We have postponed the strike for three months, the time during which the Government has promised to fulfill all our demands. If the demands are not fulfilled during this period, we will resume the strike.”
As many as 67,000 para teachers of the State were on a strike since November 16, 2018, a day after the statehood day, when they pelted stones during the ceremony and had to face lathi charge by the security forces.