Government-aided college teachers stage road roko and court arrest

Teachers in government-aided colleges and affiliated to the MUTA (Madurai Kamaraj, Manonmaniam Sundaranar, Mother Teresa and Alagappa University Teachers’ Association) staged a road roko here on Saturday demanding immediate disbursal of career advancement scheme salary arrears.

The protesting teachers said the State government, which was giving the career advancement salary to government college teachers, was refusing to extend the same to the teachers of aided colleges for the past four years. Consequently, the Associate Professors could not guide additional students in the Ph. D. programme.

“Even though the Minister for Higher Education had promised to address this anomaly, steps have not been taken so far to fulfil this assurance. Hence, we sent e-mail to Chief Minister M.K. Stalin to press our demand. We submitted petitions to all MLAs. Since the State government is not ready to listen to our genuine grievance, we staged sit-in protest even as the Assembly session was on. However, there has been no response from the Department of Higher Education. If the government is still adamant, we will start indefinite agitation,” said the protesting teachers.

As the road roko near Government Siddha Medical College in Palayamkottai paralysed the vehicular traffic, the police detained 240 protesters, including 107 woman teachers, who were released in the evening.