Mizoram Hindi teachers protest continues

Aizawl, Feb 25: Mizoram continues to witness teachers protest as more than 1000 Hindi teachers in the state staged a sit-in protest on Friday. The teachers who have been employed under the Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) in the North-Eastern state have called on a strike on the matter of their salaries not being payed for over ten months. Adding to the 1305 High School and Middle School Hindi teachers appointed under the CSS not being payed, there was also the fear of their appointment being terminated by the end of February. Leaders of the Hindi Teachers Association said the protest will continue in front of the Chief Minister’s office-cum-residence until Saturday. If their demands are not met by then, a different course of action will be decided. The teachers had launched a pen-down strike last week and had conducted a rally in Aizawl on Tuesday. The officials of the School Education Department clarified that the salaries are payed by the Union Human Resources Development (HRD) Ministry and not by the state government. “Continuation of the services of the Hindi teachers will be decided by the Centre in accordance with the recommendations of Lucknow-based Awadh Foundation, which has been entrusted with evaluating the scheme under which the Hindi teachers were employed”, an official told the PTI. H Rohluna, Mizoram’s School Education Minister, Parliamentary Secretary Joseph Javadekar and other ministry officials had met in New Delhi on October 26, 2016 ti discuss the matter. Mizoram CM Lal Thanhawla has already written to the Prime Minister twice on this matter.