Teachers’ union to meet Amarinder after winter session

The government would not hold any talks with those who are still protesting. If we take action against them, you should not complain. OP SONI , state education minister

CHANDIGARH: Punjab education minister OP Soni on Tuesday assured to arrange a meeting of leaders of the Sanjha Adhyapak Morcha with chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh immediately after the winter session of the state assembly on their demand for full salary to 8,886 contractual teachers on regularisation of service.

The minister, who had a twohour meeting with more than two-dozen teacher union leaders at Punjab Bhawan here, said they could raise their salary-related demand with the CM as the matter had already been decided by the state council of ministers and was out of his (Soni’s) purview. “Only the state cabinet has the powers to review its decisions. I will arrange the meeting on December 16 or 17,” he told the union leaders.

Thousands of teachers working under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan, who were protesting in Patiala, the CM’S hometown, against regularisation at reduced salary, called off their 56-day-long agitation on an assurance from the minister to review the decision. Contractual teachers, who presently get ₹42,300 per month, are being regularised at a reduced monthly salary of ₹15,300 for three years. The morcha, a group formed by 26 teacher unions, called off its stir on Saturday, but two decided to continue the protest at Mehmadpur in Patiala.

Soni said the government would not hold any talks with those who were still protesting. “If we take action against them, you should not complain,” he told the morcha leaders.