As the protest of the 2015 batch of All Nagaland Adhoc Teachers’ Group (ANATG) entered the third day on Friday in Kohima for regularisation of their services, the situation turned tense as some of the protesters attempted to remove barricades leading to the Nagaland Civil Secretariat. Normalcy was restored after security forces and district administration officials stepped in.
The incident happened when the aggrieved teachers carried out a peaceful march from Naga Solidarity Park towards the Civil Secretariat a day before their ultimatum to the state government expired.
The ANATG represents 1,166 adhoc teachers appointed between 1994 and December 2012 including primary, graduate and language teachers, as well as Hindi and art teachers, and carpentry instructors.
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Speaking to media persons outside Nagaland Civil Secretariat, Lhovito Sheqi highlighted that the ANATG held meetings within the group as well as two rounds of talks with the Education department. He said on Thursday, they were advised to talk to chairman of the screening committee for regularisation.
Sheqi stated that in that meeting, they expected some positive response but did not materialise. Following the discussions and the resolution of all the joint members, ANATG decided to intensify the agitation.
Clarifying about the tension that occurred outside the Civil Secretariat on Friday, Sheqi said it as unfortunate and it happened due to the frustration of the members as they have been denied service regularization for the past 14 to 15 years.
Sheqi recalled that the ANATG 2015 batch agitated in a peaceful manner in 2018 and 2022 as well, after which a High Powered Committee (HPC) agreement was signed between the government of Nagaland and the teachers’ group which read that the government will form the HPC within 15 days and submit its recommendations to the government within 6 months to resolve the issue on or before December of 2023.
Stating that nothing had come out from the government’s end till date, he said the aggrieved teachers were compelled to take to the streets their demands.
Sheqi informed that the ANATG core committee, consisting of all the district leaders were supposed to submit a letter to the government on Friday, but due to the unfortunate rise of tension at the state Secretariat gate, they were denied the entry to even submit the letter.
Leaders of ANATG alleged that there is a blame game at play. Sheqi highlighted that since inception of the issue, members of ANATG appeared their suitability tests as per the norms of the government to get regularised and had documents verified by the department basing on which they are given scale pay.
It was informed that later in the evening ANATG 2015 batch had submitted the representation letter to the Chief Secretary, where it stated that the government should immediately regularise service of 1166 ANATG- 2015 batch based on the HPC Agreement 2022 signed between the government of Nagaland and the ANATG 2015 Batch on 07/10/2022.
The ANATG assured to suspend its democratic protest basing on the nature and feasibility of the written communication from the department in response to said letter.
