Over 400 jobless West Bengal school employees block Kolkata road, demand audience with CM

KOLKATA: Over 400 people, among the 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff rendered jobless following the Supreme Court order on April 3, on Monday blocked the Hazra Crossing in south Kolkata demanding an audience with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Traffic came to a standstill for nearly an hour along the busy Asutosh Mukherjee Road-Hazra Road crossing as protesters voiced their anger at being labelled "tainted" despite qualifying in the 2016 WBSSC Recruitment Test.

They demanded to be reinstated or at least allowed to work until December 31, following the court’s directive that allowed some teachers to continue temporarily. As police tried to stop them from moving towards the CM's official residence in Kalighat area, around 1 km away, the protesters scuffled with police and squatted in the middle of the road.

Some of them were forced to board waiting police vehicles, while others were persuaded to move to the side of road. One protester, a woman lying in the middle of the road, refused to budge even after a senior police officer folded his hands and pleaded with her to move aside.

Another protester, holding up a photo of her OMR sheet, accused the SSC of playing a "divisive game" by excluding her name from the list of "not specifically tainted" candidates submitted to the district inspector of schools in Cooch Behar. "We are facing social humiliation despite clearing the SSC exams fairly before 2016," said one teacher, who did not want to be named.

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Uncertain future for tainted teachers

"If the Supreme Court itself said it couldn’t distinguish between tainted and untainted candidates due to the corruption in the recruitment process, why is the state government isolating us?" Bipul Jana, a former non-teaching staff member from a South 24 Parganas school, added, "While the SSC has sent lists of untainted teachers to respective DI offices in every region, no thought has been spared for the Group C and D staff.

We earned our jobs in a fair way in 2016, but we are staring at an uncertain future because of the large-scale irregularities committed by a section of the ruling party and government officials at that time." He also criticised the Chief Minister’s announcement of a temporary allowance, saying, "The Rs 25,000 monthly allowance for Group C and Rs 20,000 for Group D employees until December 31 is simply not enough."

The blockade, organised by the United Teaching and Non-Teaching Employees Forum, lasted around 40 minutes before police managed to clear the area. The Supreme Court has scrapped the entire 2016 WBSSC recruitment panel, resulting in 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff losing their jobs. The court later allowed "untainted" teachers to continue until December 31, but this relief was not extended to Group C and Group D staff.