Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, November 13

After meeting Education Minister Pargat Singh members of the BEd TET Pass Unemployed Teachers’ Union today withdrew their protest outside his residence. The development comes after the union was assured that a declaration regarding their demands would be met by Tuesday (November 16).

Ever since November 28, when the 31,000 member strong BEd TET Pass Unemployed Teachers held their first protest outside present Education Minister Pargat Singh’s house, the steady stream of teachers at his residence hasn’t stopped. Sticking to their warnings of holding a ‘pakkka morcha’ outside Pargat’s residence, unemployed teachers have regularly congregated outside his house since November 28 and been on permanent protest atop a water tank near the city bus stand.

Union members outside minister’s house last night.

Before heated exchanges between unemployed teachers and the police yesterday, Pargat was last seen reaching out to teachers on Diwali. Anger again flared among teachers as declaration regarding union demands wasn’t released within the stipulated time by the minister.

The minister did not meet teachers yesterday while they tried to cross barricades to reach his home entrance and were prevented by the police from doing so.

Today early in the morning, teachers gained access to another entrance of minister’s residence and sat on dharna there. The minister met teachers outside his residence today and assured them of another panel meeting after which they lifted their dharna.

Peeved at their continued and relentless dharnas outside his residence, the minister today also chided teachers for coming back again to protest despite assurances.

Union president Sukhwinder Singh Dhilwan said, “We have been assured of a meeting on November 16 at which we will put forth our detailed requests. We had a meeting with the minister after repeated interventions by the administration yesterday and today. The minister expressed anger at our repeated dharnas, but our question is why hadn’t our demands been met within stipulated time?”

“We were not given any further rescheduled date after Diwali meeting either. We have no other choice left. Many teachers will be overage for the job within months. Time is running out for us. The government needs to solve the issue before the code of conduct comes into place,” he added.

The prime demand of teachers is release of advertisements by the state government for 9,000 posts of teacher in the Education Department.

Teachers have threatened to gherao Education Minister Pargat Singh’s residence again on November 18 if Tuesday meeting is not held.