Lokmat News Network
Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:
The Adarsh Shikshak Samiti (ASS) held a strong sit-in protest (dharna) in front of the administrative building to protest against the Zilla Parishad (ZP) administration on Padwa (Diwali festival).
Since the ZP office was closed for the Diwali holiday, no official came forward to address their concerns. As a symbolic gesture, the protesters placed a memorandum of their demands before the statues of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, Savitribai Phule, and Mahatma Gandhi, after garlanding them, said the ASS district president Babulal Rathod.
The teachers have been protesting for a long time against the mismanagement in the ZP’s education section. Despite holding several demonstrations and submitting representations in the past, no corrective action has been taken. Therefore, the teachers’ organisation decided to stage this dharna on Diwali day.
The agitation was organised under the guidance of ASS’s founder Dilip Dhakne, Jayaji Bhosale, Deepa Deshpande, and Santosh Barbande, and led by Babulal Rathod and general secretary Shivaji Erande.
The protesters alleged that some ZP employees were transferred in May, but the section head has still not relieved them; many employees who have completed three years in the same post have not been reassigned to new desks; pending payments from March 31, due for over two and a half years, were cleared for most employees, but 83 teachers from Sillod and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar tehsils are still awaiting their dues.
The agitators also demanded action against the responsible clerk; timely resolution of teachers’ files; a transparent inquiry into irregularities during the general transfer process, and early action on teachers’ promotion cases, said head of publicity Mahesh Tarte.
Office-bearers of other teacher unions join protest
Leaders and representatives from various other teacher organisations also participated in the protest. These included Prakash Dane, Rauf Pathan, Shriram Bochre, Ranjit Rathod, Santosh Tathe, Rajesh Bhusari, Mahendra Barwal, Anil Dane, Vijay Shelke, Dr. Vijay Dhakre, Madhukar Ghansawant, Ashok Chavan, Deepak Randive, Pradeep More, and Pravin Sansar, among others.