Department sabotaging demands already accepted: Lecturers

Our Correspondent

Nurpur, May 2

The Himachal Pradesh School Lecturers’ Association (HPSLA) has taken strong exception to the indifferent attitude of the state Education Department towards its demands that had been accepted in principle by Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh a few months ago.

Dr Ashwani Kumar and Kamal Raina, state president and press secretary, respectively, of the association, in a joint statement here today said some bureaucrats in the Education Department were sabotaging demands accepted in principal by Virbhadra. They lamented that the longstanding and genuine demands of the school lecturers were being ignored by the department’s top officials. The HPSLA would soon chalk out its strategy against such bureaucrats of the department.

They said the demands included the restoration of designation of as many as 800 lecturers who had been regularised after their contract service, grant of pension to the contract lecturers appointed before 2003, regularisation of services of contract lecturers after five years of their service and grant of Drawing and Disbursing powers to the lecturers officiating as school principals in government senior secondary schools (GSSSs) in the state. They alleged the present director of the Education Department had revoked these powers to the lecturers which had hit working in those schools where lecturers were discharging their duties as official school principals.

The HPSLA also asked for creating posts of vice-principal in the GSSSs and fill the posts of school principal with 95 per cent from lecturers and 5 per cent from school headmasters as per their numerical strength in the state.