Agitating government college teachers in Manipur on Tuesday announced to intensify their ongoing strike with class boycott commencing from February 17.
Teachers are on strike since January 28 demanding adoption of 7th UGC Pay and Regulations, 2018. The agitation has been going on under the aegis of Federation of Government College Teachers’ Association (FEGOCTA), Manipur.
For the last 15 days, the teachers are pressing the state government to address their demand.
The government college teachers will boycott the classes from February 17 onwards. Boycott of the classes will continue until the orders implementing the 7th UGC Pay and Regulations, 2018 are issued, said FEGOCTA general secretary Dr N Somorendro Singh on Tuesday. He also said that teachers are compelled to intensify the strike failure on the part of the state government to issue the orders which had already been approved by the state cabinet on August 6, 2020.
FEGOCTA has been demanding the implementation of the UGC policy in the state since December, 2018, he said.
The state government will be completely responsible for the disturbance in the academic atmosphere in the government colleges owing the class boycott stir, the general secretary added.
He stated that the government’s blame on COVID-19 pandemic and financial problems because of the pandemic as reasons for not implementing the national policy are not acceptable.
For the other employees of the state government, revised pay structures recommended by the 7th Pay Commission had already been implemented long ago, he added.
The failure to implement the UGC policy approved three years ago by the Union government has led to the ongoing agitations of the college teachers in Manipur.
Also read: College teachers to boycott class from Feb 17 demanding 7th UGC Pay
Meanwhile, teachers of various colleges continued to stage sit-in-protest in their respective college campuses.
Mention may be made here that the teachers have been staging a series of sit-in-protest since January 29 last with two days mass casual leaves on February 12 and 13.
The decision to boycott classes was taken unanimously at a sit-in-protest cum meeting organised by FEGOCTA at DM College of Science campus on February 6 last.
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