Order on teachers’ duty to check farm fires withdrawn

Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Gurdaspur, October 17

Deputy Commissioner (DC) Vipul Ujwal on Wednesday withdrew the district administration’s notification asking school lecturers to fan out in villages across the district to ensure farmers do not indulge in paddy stubble-burning.

The Tribune had on Wednesday highlighted how nearly 300 teachers had been ordered to make sure there were no stubble-burning in villages allocated to them.

Teachers’ unions had made plans to meet senior Education Department officials on Wednesday to urge them to cancel the controversial orders. Women, too, were asked to go to far-flung villages of the border district.

“Teachers unions have misunderstood the contents of the notification. We had just asked the teachers to make farmers aware of the futility of stubble-burning. In any case, keeping in view the larger interests of the teaching fraternity, I have asked the ADC (Development), who issued the orders, to immediately withdraw them. Now, no teacher will be deputed on stubble-burning duties,” said DC Ujwal.

Earlier, Secretary (Education), Krishan Kumar had spoken to the DC. He is said to have impressed upon him that teachers could not be deployed on non-teaching duties. He added that the Education Department had already given an affidavit in a court that “teachers will not be given non-teaching duties”.

Krishan Kumar also informed the DC that there was a full-fledged system of Agriculture and Revenue Department officials, including patwaris and panchayat secretaries, whose duty was to ensure that no stubble-burning took place. Amarjit Shastri, president of the Gurdaspur unit of the Democratic Teachers Front, said in future, too, the administration should make sure no teacher was put on non-teaching duties, except for those mentioned under the Right to Education Act.