Kolkata: Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced on Saturday that her government would provide interim financial assistance to the protesting Group C and D non-teaching staff on “humanitarian and compassionate grounds”. Their appointments were cancelled by the Supreme Court. She also assured that her government would file a review petition for both the affected staff and the teachers.
“We have a number of social security schemes and hence considering the difficulties faced by the Group C and Group D employees we can provide Rs 25,000 per month for Group C and Rs 20,000 for Group D until there is a decision on the review petition. I have spoken to the Chief Secretary, Labour department and our legal team and if you agree, I can provide this support,” said Banerjee in an audio message while Chief Secretary Manoj Pant was holding a meeting with Group C and Group D at Nabanna Sabhaghar.
Banerjee referred to providing assistance of Rs 10,000 per month to the employees of Dunlop who lost their jobs post-closure of the factory. “There will be no link with the Education department in providing this monthly assistance, it will be under the social security scheme,” said Banerjee. She maintained that if the Supreme Court rejects the review plea, her government would explore alter-native measures to support the affected people. “We will go for a review petition for the teachers as well as for the Group C and D staff in the top court. We are seeking legal advice in this case. We do not want to do things in a hurry to avoid any mistakes,” she said. Banerjee added that she was not in a position to comment on ‘tainted’ and ‘untainted’ teachers, as she was yet to receive any official list. The Chief Minister said that the state was seeking legal advice from top lawyers so that the teachers do not lose their jobs and do not need to sit for the tests again. She added that it will take at least till the first week of May to file the review petition.
The best lawyers are being roped in by the state government. The delegation attending the meeting demanded Rs 25,000 for Group D and Rs 30,000 for Group C. Around 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff of state-aided schools lost their jobs after the Supreme Court, on April 3, scrapped the entire 2016 recruitment panel. The Apex Court later allowed the ser-vices of untainted teachers to continue till December 31, however, the relief was not extended to Group C and D non-teaching staff. The Group C and Group D employees, however, declared continuing with their movement demanding publication of the list of tainted and untainted teachers. A section of them are on dharna infront of the School Service Commission office at Karunamoyee while some others are observing a hunger strike inside the office of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education.