Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR/JAMMU, Aug 9: Demanding implementation of 7th Pay Commission for the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) teachers and de-linking their salary from the Central source of funding, Employees Joint Action Committee and J&K Rehbar-e-Talim Teachers Forum today held massive protest demonstrations in both the capital cities of the State.
As protesting members of Employees’ Joint Action Committee tried to march towards the Civil Secretariat in Srinagar, Police resorted to baton charge and used water cannon thus leaving several protesters injured.
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Some protestors were bundled into Police vans after they tried to march on Residency Road, bringing the traffic to grinding halt for nearly twenty minutes. After stepping out of the Park, Police equipped with riot gear, stopped the protestors near General Post office and used water cannon and baton-charged the agitators to disperse them.
Earlier, under the banner of EJAC, a large number of employees from different districts assembled at Sher-e-Kashmir Park in Srinagar and held demonstration. They were holding placards inscribed with demands for delinking of their salaries from the Central Fund and implementation of 7th Pay Commission.
President EJAC, Qayoom Wani addressed the gathering and said that depriving 40,000 SSA teachers from the benefit of 7th Pay Commission was unjust. He further said that because of delay in de-linking their salary from the Central source of funding, these SSA teachers were not getting regular salary with the result that these employees were facing difficulty even to feed their families and deposit school fees of their wards.
Qayoom Wani threatened to hit roads along with five lack employees under the banner of EJAC, if authorities fail to fulfill their demands.
In Jammu, J&K ReT Teachers’ Forum held a strong protest demonstration near Press Club Jammu, under the leadership of State president Vinod Sharma.
Holding placards in their hands and shouting slogans in favour of their demands, the protesting ReTs tried to take out a march towards Governor House but a large number of police personnel deployed there foiled the attempt. In the process, a few ReTs received minor injuries and some of them were even temporarily detained.
ReTs, who were detained, included Nazam Jafri, Sukhdev Singh Sumbria, Gulzabir Daing, Naresh Sharma, Rajesh Jamwal, Sham Sharma, Raj Kumar Dubey, Sukesh Khajuria, Mahesh Kumar, Arvind Sharma, Rinku Sharma, Sajad Malik, Lekh Raj Parihar and others.
Earlier, addressing the gathering, Vinod Sharma flayed the Government for its dilly delaying tactics to resolve the issues of SSA Teachers and Masters. He lamented that families of thousands of these teachers were suffering badly because of irregular salary.
“We have projected these issues from bottom to top and even many peaceful protests have been held in Jammu as well as Kashmir province but still these issues are unresolved, thereby forcing us to come on roads ” he said adding that they had no such attention to leave their schools and come on roads but callous approach of the Government was forcing them for such steps.
A similar but peaceful protest demonstration was held in the premises of Divisional Commissioner Jammu, under the banner of Employees Joint Action Committee, (EJAC) to draw the attention of Governor towards the plights of Regularized ReTs under the flagship schemes of SSA and RMSA.
The speakers highlighted the issues of ReTs and raised slogans in support of their demand for 7th Pay Commission benefits to the SSA teachers and delinking their salary from Central fund.
After the protest demonstration, Ganesh Khajuria, general secretary JKTF, a constituent of EJAS, along with Amrik Singh, N S Jamwal, Jagdish Sharma, Surinder Radotra, Janak Raj Choudhary, Lalit Pandita and Kuldeep Sharma of EJAC submitted a memorandum to the Governor through Divisional Commissioner Jammu urging him to intervene and streamline the salary issue by delinking it from the MHRD budget besides extending the benefits of 7th Pay Commission in their favour.