Nagaland adhoc teachers launch indefinite hunger strike over delay in service regularisation

Kohima, Feb 11 (PTI) Irked over what they called a delaying tactics of the Nagaland government, a group of the 2015 Batch adhoc school teachers of the state on Wednesday launched an indefinite hunger strike demanding immediate service regularisation of 1,166 of them.

Wednesday is the seventh day of the All Nagaland Adhoc Teachers Group (ANATG)-2015 agitation, which they started in a low-key and silent manner on February 4 with the teachers converging daily at Naga Solidarity Park.

Amid the agitation, the Nagaland government outlined the status of the long-pending regularisation process of the ANATG-2015, comprising teachers appointed on contract/ad-hoc basis under the School Education Department between the late 1990s and 2012.

An official statement said a suitability test was conducted in May 2017 in line with P&AR Office Memorandums of 2008 and 2016, which provided for regularisation after three years of continuous service, subject to clearance of the test and cabinet approval. All 1,166 teachers who cleared the test were recommended for regularisation and a cabinet memorandum was submitted on October 26, 2017.

However, the process was stalled following orders of the Gauhati High Court, Kohima Bench, in July 2017 and August 2018, which restrained the state government from regularising contract/ad-hoc employees. In August 2018, the cabinet decided to defer regularisation until the court matter was resolved, though the fixed pay of the ad-hoc teachers was doubled.

In 2022, the government constituted a High Powered Committee, which submitted its report next year. In February 2024, the cabinet adopted a policy for regularisation of contract/ad-hoc employees, followed by a resolution of the Assembly.

A one-time regularisation policy was notified on March 16, 2024, applicable to employees appointed against sanctioned posts prior to June 6, 2016, and a Screening Committee was constituted.

The School Education Department has since forwarded details of 2,487 ad-hoc/contract employees to the Screening Committee, with verification and scrutiny of documents currently underway, the statement said.

Despite several rounds of meetings in early February between ANATG representatives, departmental officials, the Screening Committee and senior government functionaries, including the Chief Secretary, the teachers have gone ahead with the hunger strike, alleging lack of concrete timelines and decisions.

In the meantime, while the district administration has permitted the agitation only from 9 am to 4 pm outside the Capital Convention Centre below Secretariat Junction, ANATG volunteers have set up canopies behind the Civil Secretariat and declared that they will continue the indefinite hunger strike until their demand for regularisation is fulfilled.

ANATG officials reiterated that all 1,166 members had already cleared the suitability test and other formal processes, asserting that their demand for regularisation is legitimate and non-negotiable. PTI NBS NN