Nagaland: Teachers' body proposes to put agitation on hold till June 30

KOHIMA: The Core Committee of the All Nagaland Ad-hoc Teachers Group (ANATG)-2015 on Friday proposed to keep their strike on hold till June 30, accepting a proposal by the Directorate of School Education (DoSE). The final decision would be taken on Saturday at a general body meeting, leaders of the group said.

The DoSE had on Thursday appealed to them to call off the protest over the regularisation of 1,166 ad-hoc teachers, assuring that concerted efforts were underway to resolve the issue in a fair and transparent manner.

In a letter addressed to the convenor of ANATG-2015, Principal Director Shashank Pratap Singh noted that certain key documents, including sanction post order numbers, appointment orders and release orders of previous incumbents, could not be traced and have been escalated to the competent authority to explore alternative solutions.

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Assuring that genuine cases would be considered as per established norms and procedures, he said necessary administrative measures would be undertaken to verify records and address discrepancies. The Core Committee convened an emergency meeting following receipt of the written communication.

After detailed deliberations, the committee resolved to temporarily put the protest on hold in good faith, acknowledging the assurances given by the government.

Deadline set to June 30

However, it set June 30 as the deadline for completion of all alternative arrangements and processes for regularisation. Core Committee members said they have submitted their proposal to the principal director and are awaiting the government's response.

They also stated that the final decision on keeping the agitation on hold was yet to be endorsed by the general members, who have been staging a sit-in protest since February 4.

The teachers had earlier organised a march to the state secretariat and observed a three-day hunger strike. A general body meeting held during the day remained inconclusive and would continue on Saturday for a final decision.