2016! Borkotoky rains jobs & sops

BY OUR STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI, Oct 15: With only six months left for the Assam assembly elections, the State government is leaving no stone unturned to woo voters with lucrative offers. In one such dubious initiative, the Education department is now planning to fill up various vacant posts in different institutions under its ambit.

This ‘bonza’ by the State government is all set to be kicked off after Durga Puja as the Education department is planning to appoint over 5,000 new teachers for Lower Primary schools. Announcing this in Guwahati on Thursday, Education minister Sarat Borkotoky said, “Soon after Durga Puja, we will give appointment to 5,736 LP school teachers. We are going to bring out a new list, as the list published earlier had some flaws. We are going to initiate action against those officers who are responsible for this.”

The Education minister also announced that very soon 5,608 Upper Primary and Lower Primary schools will be provincialized, and jobs of around 21,000 teachers will be regularised.

Apart from this, the minister also announced that 12,094 teachers who were given jobs on irregular appointment between 1991-2001 will be regularised through cabinet approval. However, the department will conduct a scrutiny and those who are still active will enjoy the benefits.

In high school level too, posts of 6,000 teachers who are now on contractual basis will be regularised soon, the minister announced.

The list does not end here — the government is also filling up 102 posts of 3rd grade and 4th grade category lying vacant in district and sub-divisiol offices of the Education department. “270 vacant posts in SCERT will be filled by December and 108 posts of lecturers lying vacant in DIET will also be filled soon,” he said.

Similarly, in a bid to get closer to the people living below the poverty line (BPL families), the Education minister announced a one-time assistance of Rs 6,000 for BPL students who had secured at least 60% marks in the board exams. Apart from this, the college fees of the BPL students will be waived, which will cost the government around Rs 81 crore.

With an expenditure of Rs 20 crore, the government is also going to provided solar lamps to students residing in rural areas of the State.

The Education department is also going to provide sanitary pads to girl students of Class 9 and 10.

Speaking on the Andaram Borooah Award, the Borkotoky said that 51,000 students who secured first division will get laptops and 49,000 students who secured second division will get tablets.

The minister also announced that 44 colleges of the State will get a fund of Rs 1 crore for infrastructure development.

On the other hand, from now onwards the government is planning to introduce viva once again for candidates to higher secondary teachers and college lecturers post. It may be mentioned that the previous Education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had removed the viva interview by justifying that it leads to corruption in recruitment of teachers. However, the announcement made by the present Education minister on Thursday indicates that the department is now back on its previous track.

Though this is indeed good news for thousands of unemployed youths in the State, the whiff of appeasement politics is rather strong in the move made by the government. With the State reeling under fincial crunch, it is very unlikely that the Education department will be able to make its grandiose announcements a reality anytime soon.