Nagaland ad hoc teachers’ agitation enters tenth day

Kohima, 5 Oct: Over a thousand ad hoc Nagaland government teachers on Wednesday continued with their sit-in protest here for the tenth day demanding immediate service regularisation.
The All Nagaland Ad hoc Teachers Group (ANATG)-2015 batch with 1,166 members appointed to different government schools in the state from 1994 to 2012 has been staging a demonstration outside the state Civil Secretariat here since September 26.
Thirty-eight members started a hunger strike on Thursday night.
ANATG spokesperson Bendangtemsu Ozukum claimed eight of the 38 members had to be rushed to hospital.
He also said that with the meetings with state government representatives ending in a deadlock, the ANATG members were becoming impatient and thinking of intensifying the agitation.
The Ad hoc teachers on Monday rejected the state government’s offer to set up a High-Powered Committee (HPC) and reaffirmed their demand for immediate regularisation of their service.
They also submitted a representation to Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio seeking his intervention to resolve the matter.
On Tuesday, a 31-member team comprising ANATG Core Committee members had a closed-door meeting with Nagaland government Advisor for School Education K T Sukhalu, Commissioner and Secretary Kevileno Angami, Principal Director Thavaseelan K. and Director Wanthungo Tsopoe.
However, the meeting ended in a deadlock with both sides not budging from their stand.
The government had been maintaining that it was not in a position to regularise services of the ad hoc teachers because of the standing order of the Supreme Court and High Court not to regularise ad hoc appointees.
However, the ANATG, while citing instances of other departments regularising the service of ad hoc employees, wondered if the court order was only applicable to them.
The Principal Director had said that the members of the ANATG-2015 Batch were not illegal appointees but were appointed irregularly without following proper norms in sanctioned posts.
The department had also suggested to ad hoc teachers to move the court to vacate the order, without which it would not be possible to regularise their service. (PTI)