Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Sept 24: About 40,000 upper primary and middle English school teachers of the Orissa Vidyalaya Sikshak Mahasangh Thursday agreed to return to classrooms, while 26,800 high school teachers working in 2,209 block grant high schools continued their agitation.
The teachers of different organisations were on strike for more than one month demanding salary on the basis of the grant-in-aid policy instead of the block grant mode of payment. They said teachers should be paid equal salary for equal work.
Teachers in government schools are being paid salary according to the grant-in-aid policy, while those in private institutions get payment on the basis of block grant mode, they said.
“The Mahasangh has decided to suspend the agitation for two months as the government has assured us that it will consider our demand of providing salary on the basis of grant-in-aid and repeal the block grant system,” Mahasangh convenor Prakash Chandra Mohanty said after a discussion with state government representatives.
Earlier in the day, the inter-ministerial committee headed by finance minister Pradip Kumar Amat held discussions with agitating teachers of different organisations. Seven ministers, including Amat, and school and mass education (S&ME) minister Debi Prasad Mishra, as well as Chief Secretary GC Pati attended the meeting.
It was decided that after receiving in-principle approval from the finance and planning and coordination departments, the government would initiate steps to provide pension and other post retirement benefits to the block grant teachers, sources said.
The panel also decided to provide grant-in-aid to 399 schools. The S&ME department will issue notification in this regard, following the finance department approval.
