'Can't Assam be a welfare state?'

'This is not done. A welfare state is one that protects and promotes the well-being of its citizens. How come the state Education Department termite our contracts in such a way and make us jobless when we’re no longer young enough to start our professiol lives afresh?’ –Now axed shiksha karmis

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, March 3: A welfare state is one that protects and promotes the well-being of its citizens on all fronts. If the Congress Government in Assam, led by Tarun Gogoi as the Chief Minister, cannot do a welfare state, at least it should not be out to spoil the future of lakhs of unemployed youth of the state with its faulty policies. Spending over six years for the wellbeing of education in the state,  the sanjogi shiksha karmis of the state are a frustrated lot now with the state Education Department termiting their contracts. Now they are averaged and jobless.

Shouting slogans for the second day today at Dispur Last Gate, members of the All Assam Sanjogi Shiksha Karmis’ Union  (AASSKU) set March 10 as its deadline for the State Education Department to meet their demands, failing which, they threatened, they will gherao the residence of the Education Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary of Education, stage rail rokos, tiol highway blockades etc.

The now-axed sanjogi teachers demand that they should be appointed as supporting teachers based on their experience since they spent as long as six years working for the development of education in the state. Many of the axed shiksha karmis are averaged now, and taking that into account they requested the government to relax their upper age limits since they worked in the department for long six years.

The sanjogi shiksha karmis were first appointed on contracts for 11 months by the state Education Department  in 2005, but the department kept on extending their terms of contracts till March 31, 2012. Repeated extension of their terms by the department made them believe that they would be inducted in the department on a permanent basis in the long run. Things, however, took a turn for the worse for them. The department started to termite their terms slowly and not at one go, and at a time when most of them are averaged the department termited the jobs of all.

“This is not done. A welfare state is one that protects and promotes the wellbeing of its citizens. How come the state Education Department termite our contracts in such a way and make us jobless when we’re no longer young enough to start our professiol lives afresh?” a number of the now axed shiksha karmis questioned. Giving details on what a welfare state is, a section of the aggrieved and axed shiksha karmis said: “On May, 2010 as many as 75,000 shiksha mitras, who had been working on contracts, were appointed as teachers in West Bengal. Such cases were also found in other states. This is because they want not to make such people jobless at a time when they are averaged and the changes of their fresh job opportunities are slim.”