‘Teacher’s Day gift’: 685 Punjab teachers put on duty to make ration cards

The Ludhiana district administration has deployed 658 government school teachers to verify applications for new ration cards under the Punjab government’s ‘Meri Rasoi’ scheme, with SDM (East) Jasleen Kaur Bhullar saying educationists had to be pressed into service due to a shortage of staff.

The deployment comes just as internal examinations in the state-run schools are set to begin. An order issued by Bhullar directs the district education officers (primary and secondary) to “immediately relieve” the teachers assigned the duty.

“The forms of beneficiaries who have applied for ration cards are to be verified. Keeping in view the immediacy and sensitivity of the work, the employees who have been put on duty should be relieved immediately,” the SDM said in the order.

The order further adds that the details of "employees who were already on SIR/BLO duty or have been transferred" should be sent to the SDM office, and "school principals/incharge will make an arrangement at their own to replace that employee", and in case they fail to do so, "they will have to submit an explanation by personally appearing in SDM office." The move drew sharp reaction from teachers, who termed it a “clear violation of Section 27 of the Right to Education Act”.

They said teachers had already been repeatedly assigned non-academic duties, including SIR, BLO, population and drug censuses, and registration of beneficiaries for government welfare schemes among others. “This is a Teacher’s Day gift that the government has given us.

Exams are about to begin and again we are being pulled out of classrooms. We understand that census and election duties are part of our responsibilities, but why are we being dragged into the government’s populist schemes?” asked a teacher.

Another teacher said Section 27 of RTE clearly states that teachers cannot be deployed for non-education work. :It states that teachers cannot be deployed for any other purpose than Population Census, disaster relief duties or those related to elections.

The union education ministry has also clarified that the purpose of Section 27 is to ensure that teachers remain focused on their academic responsibilities, including completing curriculum and providing quality education.

The Punjab government must answer that under which law they are making teachers do this extra work to promote their own schemes,” the teacher said. Teachers assigned the ration-card duty were called to mark their attendance on Saturday.

One teacher said there were no other staff members available at the school to prepare students for the examinations. “After Drug Census and Population Census, I have now been put on ration-card duty. The exams are here and there are no other teachers in our school to prepare the students,” the teacher said, adding “I have submitted an application that I cannot perform this duty as exams are near”.

SDM Bhullar said: "We have to deploy teachers for this work due to shortage of staff." Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had announced the Meri Rasoi scheme in February. He had said that 40 lakh beneficiary families of the government’s atta-dal scheme would get 2 kg of sugar, 2 kg of chana dal, 1 litre of mustard oil, 1 kg of salt, and 200 g of turmeric in addition to wheat.