The Odisha Human Rights Commission on Tuesday issued a notice to the State government to explain denial of education to 5 lakh students due to locking of 4,000 block grant schools.
Hearing a petition filed by human rights lawyer Prabir Das, Acting Chairperson of OHRC, Justice Birakishore Mishra, issued notices to the Chief Secretary and the Secretary of School and Mass Education Department to submit detail report on locking of schools within two weeks.
“More than five lakh students are being deprived of education for the last 15 days due to lock-out strike by teachers and employees of 4,000 schools in demand of abolition of Block Grant System since August 10,” said Mr. Das in his petition.
“Teachers and employees demand abolition of the block grant system under which the State government provides them a grant every month for running the school. The same grant includes the payment of teachers. They alleged that the salary fixed for them is much lower than the salary of teachers in the state-run schools though the work is the same,” he said.
Prasanta Patnaik 
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