Retired teachers of Bengal show caused for being absent on day of strike

The West Bengal government has issued show cause notice to around 23,000 teachers for being absent on March 10, when a strike was held demanding DA hike. This was for the first time ever that so many teachers were show-caused together.

Chinsurah (Hooghly):Kishore Chattopadhyay, who retired as a school teacher in 2016, received a show cause letter from the school education department asking him as to why he was absent from duty on the day when government employees went on strike demanding Dearness Allowance (DA) hike. Chattopadhyay is among several other such former teachers of Hooghly's Adi Saptyagram High School who were show caused by the department A similar show cause notice was even served to the family of a retired staff of the same school who had passed away in 2019. This has raised questions as to whether the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education lacks record of the retired and deceased teachers.

Chattopadhyay said he was surprised to receive the notice so many years after retirement. He was a physical education teacher at the school for 36 years. Chattopadhyay said, "My name has been included in the list of employees who went on strike over demands of DA. I have heard that many other retired employees as well as those who died have received similar show cause notices. I support the strike. Receiving a show cause notice after retirement is ridiculous. Doesn't the department possess any record about retired teachers like us?" ABTA Hooghly district secretary Priyaranjan Ghatak said such incidents prove that the administration has come to a standstill.

According to sources, the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education had issued show cause notices to around 23,000 teachers. Prior to this, the state finance department had issued a notification cancelling all kinds of leaves for the government employees along with stating that a day's salary would be deducted as well as threatened of break-in-service if they did not report for work. Following which, the show cause notice was served. Last month, the government granted DA to employees, pensioners and family pensioners at a rate of six per cent of the basic pay with effect from March 1. This six per cent is the total of the three per cent DA that was announced in December 2020 for being implemented from January 1 2021.