Irked by govt apathy, teachers plan hunger strike

Agitated over false promises by the state government, the Maharashtra Federation of University and Colleges Teachers Organisations (MFUCTO) has called for a hunger strike on Monday.

All teachers will sit on a hunger strike from 7am to 7pm at their universities. The teachers body has been struggling since a long time to get their arrears as per the sixth pay commission. They have also been fighting for the regularisation of 8,000 teachers appointed during 1991-2000 without clearing NET/SET, a mandatory norm as per the University Grants Commission (UGC) rules.

The UGC had given the go-ahead to these teachers long ago, but teachers in the state have been fighting for their rights for almost two decades now. They have been denied promotions and most of them are not even receiving salary as per the fifth pay commission.

Madhu Paranjape, secretary of the Bombay chapter of MFUCTO, said, “We were on a 52-day strike in April-May for these issues. The government agreed to our demands then and we called off the strike. After that, they have been using the Mantralaya fire as an excuse to not grant us our rights. Despite waiting for such a long time, nothing has materialised. Teachers are the only community who have been struggling for arrears.”

Even though 80% of the arrear budget will be reimbursed by the union government, the state government has not take any definitive action on this front.