25 KGBV teachers detained

SRINAGAR, May 23:

At least 25 women teachers engaged under  Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) scheme were today taken into preventive custody here.
The teachers were protesting near the office of Directorate of Education near here for the past three days demanding their regularisation. One of the agitating teacher said that a police party came this morning and bundled about 25 women teachers into police vehicles which took them to Women Police Station Rambagh.
We are demanding justice as we have completed more than five years in service, she said, adding we would intensify our agitation.
She said there were 770 teachers out of which 100 have been regularised after completing five years in service. Now, she said Jammu and Kashmir Government was refusing to regularise remaining teachers now.
The State Government maintained that since KGBV is a centrally sponsored scheme, the Government could not do anything for agitating teachers.
Blaming on previous Government for the current situation, Minister for Education Naeem Akhtar said the earlier coalition Government of National Conference (NC) and Congress has played with the carrier of these youths engaged under KGBV scheme in state by keeping them in dark about their future prospects under this scheme.
Mr Akhtar said KGBV is a scheme introduced by Union Government in August 2004 and later integrated it in the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan programme. It was introduced to provide educational facilities for girls belonging to Scheme Casts, Schedule Tribes, other Backward Classes, minority communities and families below the poverty line in educationally backward blocks. Under the scheme a teacher is appointed on purely contractual basis and paid Rs 6000. Since it is a Centre’s scheme state has no role in it, Mr Akhtar said adding all rules of appointment were framed by the Central Government, he clarified. (AGENCIES)