Crucial meeting between Bengal Education Minister with school job losers today

Kolkata, April 11 (IANS) West Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu will meet the school job losers, whose relay hunger strike has entered the second day on Friday.

The meeting will be held at Bikas Bhavan at 3 p.m.

At the meeting, Minister Basu is expected to explain to the delegation of the job losers the initiatives mooted by the state government to end the crisis.

Notably, the Supreme Court last week ordered cancellation of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching jobs in state-run schools in West Bengal. The ruling was given in the West Bengal School jobs case.

The relay hunger strike started on Thursday afternoon in front of the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) office at Salt Lake in Kolkata with just one teacher. Later, two other teachers, who also lost their jobs, joined the hunger strike.

As per information available so far, the delegation of teaching and non-teaching staff will have eight members, while two senior officials attached to the state Education Department and the WBSSC chairman Siddhartha Majumdar will accompany Minister Basu.

"The delegation is demanding immediate action by the state government and the commission to segregate the 'genuine' candidates from the 'tainted' ones who secured jobs by paying money. Besides, we seek immediate publication of the mirror images of the optical marks recognition sheets used in written examination for recruitment to make the segregation process more transparent," said a representative of an umbrella organisation created to carry forward the protests on this issue in the coming days.

The delegation members will also request the Minister Basu to ensure departmental actions against the cops of Kolkata Police who resorted to "unprovoked assault" on the protesting job losers in front of the office of the District Inspector of schools at Kasba in Kolkata on Wednesday.

--IANS

src/svn