STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Police on Thursday foiled the Civil Secretariat ‘Gherao’ programme of the ReT Teachers and PHE daily rated, ITI trained and CP workers amidst minor scuffle with the protesters at Indira Chowk here.
Led by State President All J&K ReT Teachers Forum, Vinod Sharma, thousands of ReT teachers marched towards Civil Secretariat from Press Club which was foiled by a large number of police contingent near Indira Chowk.
Vinod lambasted the State Government and the Education Department for their biased approach towards ReT fraternity. He said that regularisation of ReTs who have completed five years service is still pending and they are harassed in the name of verification and screening tests where as the Court has ordered only to screen the degrees issued by tuck-shops/fake universities. He further said that the department has even failed to streamline the salary of SSA teachers which is pending for the last six to eight months.
Instead of resolving the issues, the department is issuing orders of screening test of ReTs having distance mode qualifications from outside the State universities/boards thereby questioning the credibility of these institutions which is condemned by forum and boycott the same.
“The government must first publish the list of all fake study centres/tuck shops and then go for the test of not only ReTs, but all the employees of the State who have obtained degrees from such study centres/tuck shops, otherwise the harassment of ReTs on the screening test be stopped,” he said.
Meanwhile the executive body of forum threatened to launch Statewide protests and Gherao the Assembly in coming days if the screening test order is not revoked and SSA salary is not released immediately.
Others who also addressed the gathering were Najam Jafri, Sukhdev Singh Sumbria, Rajesh Jamwal, Naresh Sharma, Sham Sharma, Sajad Malik, Gulzabir Daing, Lekh Raj Parihar, Manzoor Khan, Subash Chander, Balwan Singh, Pankaj Verma , Tahir Masood , Dinesh Singh, Shabir Chowdhary, Surjit Singh, Ravinder Singh, Kuldip Katoch , Manzoor Malik and Ravinder Chib.
Similarly, the PHE workers who are on the strike for the last three months and sitting on Dharna at Exhibition Ground near Press Club today took out a strong protest rally towards Civil Secretariat disrupting vehicular movement for an hour.
The agitating PHE workers were demanding regularisation of all daily rated/ CP workers and release of their pending wages for the last over 35 months. As they reached near Indira Chowk, a strong contingent of police intercepted them and did not allow to move ahead.
Association President Tanveer Hussain said, “We are on Kaam Chhoro Hartal since 15th September 2016 with our families and the children but State Government has no positive response towards our demands.”
“Despite of so many insurance practically nothing is being done by the State Government,” he said adding that nearly 23,711 daily wagers today stand in a hapless condition.
Others who spoke on the occasion included Deepak Gupta (Vice President ), Subash Chander (General Secretary), Bhanu Partap, Tilak Raj, Manjeet Singh, Jeevan Singh, Sanjeev Kumar, Altaf Hussain, Rajesh Kumar, Pardeep Kumar, Pawan Kumar, Vijay Kumar, Surinder Kumar, Hoshiar Singh, Nasir Khan and Subash Chander Sharma.
