JEPC sets Oct 25 deadline for protesters

RANCHI: Project director of Jharkhand Education Project Council (JEPC) Mukesh Kumar has appealed to protesting para teachers to return to work by October 25.
Kumar said, "Keeping in view the welfare of students, I appeal to para teachers that they return to work on the set deadline. If they fail to do so, their services would be terminated the next day and a process for recruitment will start immediately."
The para teachers have been on strike since September 17 demanding recruitment of para teachers who have passed Jharkhand Teachers Eligibility Test and an increase of 25% honorarium of those who have not cleared the JTET.
As the honorarium of para teachers is decided by the Centre, the state education department had sent a letter to the Centre requesting the increase of honorarium and the latter approved to an increase of 10%.
Kumar said, "We have again written to the Centre to increase the honorarium at least by 15% and as far as permanent recruitment is concerned, we have already given 50% reservation to para teachers on the permanent posts. In interest of the students they should now return to work."
Apart from the para teachers, block resource persons, cluster resource persons and JEPC employees are also on strike.
The JEPC employees have been demanding payment at par with the sixth pay commission and have been on strike since September 14. They were given a deadline of October 19 but they still have not returned to work.
Kumar said, "We will call an establishment committee meeting on Tuesday and terminate the service all employees who do not resume work."
However, a source from the JEPC claimed that the employees are likely to resume work by Monday. Similarly, the deadline for BRPs and CRPs who are also on strike, was October 21 which they failed to meet and have not returned to work in many districts.
"BRPs and CRPs have resumed work in Ranchi but are yet to join in some other districts. Taking an immediate action, the Jamshedpur DC has already terminated all those who were on a strike after the deadline and other DCs might as well do the same," Kumar said.
Meanwhile, the KGBV employees who were on strike returned a day after the deadline and thus were spared of termination. "However, it is up to the discretion of DCs to implement no work no pay for the KGBV employees," said the project director.