18,000 teachers in this city have taken to the streets in protest of the Odisha government’s recent decision to regularise about 57,000 contractual employees by repealing the Contractual Appointment Rules 2013 for Group B, C, and D posts. They claim that despite having worked as contractual employees for years, they have not received the benefit.
On Sunday, thousands of teachers protested at this location’s Mahatma Gandhi Marg against what they claimed was the state government’s discrimination. They pledged to keep protesting until their demands were met. If their complaint was not addressed, they even threatened to skip the Class X summative exam that I had set for this week.
The teachers sought that the benefits given to the contractual teachers hired starting in 2014 be extended to them as well in accordance with the repeal of the contractual appointment regulations under the auspices of “The Odisha Government High School New Pension Scheme Teachers’ Association.”
Purnachandra Aech, the president of the association, stated that following the elimination of the contractual system, the state government created the new Odisha Group B, C, and D posts rule 2022, which was announced by the GA department on October 16, 2022. The new rules will extend the regularisation and benefits to those who were employed on a contractual basis after 2013.
He added that the government ought to remember that there are also 18,000 contractual teachers who were hired in 4,848 government high schools between 2004 and 2013 and that they ought to receive the same benefits.
If a contractual teacher hired after 2013 is entitled to regularisation as of the date of hire, why isn’t the same done for teachers hired prior to 2013? Additionally, why are their six years spent working in schools not included in the service period? asked the association’s participants.
They claimed that many of the teachers who have been regularised after a six-year contractual period will become junior to those who joined after 2013 if the benefits of the new standards are not passed on to them. Additionally, the newly hired teachers will be paid more than the more seasoned ones.
Prasanta Patnaik 
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