Ludhiana News, Ludhiana ADC suspends six teachers from one school for ‘neglecting election duty’
CM Bhagwant Mann during a visit to a government school in Punjab with Manish Sisodia
The Ludhiana district administration on Wednesday suspended six teachers of a primary school for “failing to report on election duty” for the Ludhiana West by-election, an order that has come amid the ongoing admission season and the AAP government’s “Education Revolution Campaign” and has therefore come under question.
The order was issued even Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann has claimed time and again that “teachers will only teach” and won’t be assigned any non-teaching works.
The order issued by Ludhiana’s additional deputy commissioner (urban development) states that six teachers from Government Primary School (GPS), Sunet, were being suspended “with immediate effect” as they “neglected the election duty work” and also “defied the orders of the undersigned”.
The order further states: “These employees were given duties as booth level officers (BLOs) on April 12 and they were ordered to report in this office by April 15. But they failed to do so. This makes it clear that they neglected the election work as well as the orders of the undersigned. They are being suspended with immediate effect.”
Contacted, school’s head teacher Meena Rani said that it wasn’t possible for the teachers to leave the school during working hours as they were busy taking new admissions.
“There are only 26 teachers for over a thousand students. Already four other teachers are on election duty. These teachers could not report for election duty as there was too much work in school. Construction is also ongoing in the school. Even I have been deputed as a BLO and this makes things really difficult for teachers. How can six teachers from one school be deputed on election duty?,” asked the head teacher.
Officials identified the suspended teachers as– primary cadre teacher Uma Sharma, associate pre-primary teachers Gurvinder Kaur, Jaspreet and Sarabjit Kaur, and associate teachers Hardeep Kaur and Manninder Kaur.
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Contacted, ADC (urban development) Rupinder Singh said: “We are revoking the order.”
Asked how six teachers from one school were put on election duty, he said: “We will make adjustments later once the work for bypoll is streamlined.”