As a part of a three-phase protest, over 5,000 Government college faculties in Madhya Pradesh, who have not yet received their salary for the month of October, plan to write letters every day beginning from November 21, to the Congress government in the state, urging them to clear their dues at the earliest.
Madhya Pradesh Government Collegiate Education Professors’ Association has been protesting against the Kamal Nath government for the non-payment of dues.
President of the association, Kailash Tiyagi was reported as saying: “We were happy when it was announced that the salary would be credited before Diwali. We are yet to get the salary to date. I am told that even in some colleges, the professors were not paid salary for the past two months,” said Tyagi, confessing that due to the non-payment, this year Diwali was a black Diwali for all of them.
“We have several responsibilities at the family level. We could not pay the EMI. You can imagine the condition we are facing,” had said a professor on conditions of anonymity.
According to a report by India Today, the agitating teachers in the second phase of their protest had tied black bands from November 24 to November 30. By December 1, they will be starting silent protests, informed professor Anand Sharma, secretary of the government teachers association.
Kamal Nath government had initially denied the allegations saying that the teachers had not approached them with their grievances, however, on Monday evening, the state higher education department sent across a message to the college teachers saying that their October salaries had been released with immediate effect.
The government teachers in Madhya Pradesh have long been raising their voices against the Congress government’s apathy towards them in the state. Thousands of guest faculties had reached Bhopal on September 5 (Teachers’ Day), to stage Halla Bol, an agitation to remind the Kamal Nath government of its unfulfilled promise of making them permanent. Agitated by incident then Congress’ Bhopal, General Administration Minister, Dr Govind Singh had commented that the government does not grow money on trees and the government will try and fulfil all their promises in the coming five years.
The Congress government in Madhya Pradesh had in a pre-poll promise guaranteed that these 80,000 teachers would be regularised within three months of the party coming to power, but have not been able to fulfil its promises till date.