Teachers End 21‑Day Dhara After Government Assurances

Bhubaneswar – After a relentless 21‑day indefinite dharna at the Lower PMG campus, teachers finally decided to call off the protest on Friday. The decision came after a lengthy meeting of the Odisha School College Teachers and Employees Coordination Committee, where leaders of eight teachers’ bodies sat down together for more than an hour.

For three weeks, thousands of educators and other education‑sector employees had been camping out, staging round‑the‑clock rallies. Their demands were a long list: better pension and retirement benefits, a grant‑in‑aid for 194 schools, filling the many vacant posts, implementation of the 7th Pay Commission recommendations, fixing grade‑pay mismatches, and pushing back the retirement age from 60 to 62 years.

Earlier that day, Higher Education Minister Suryabanshi Suraj and Law Minister Prithviraj Harichandan met the protestors on Gandhi Marg. The ministers reassured the teachers that the state would “thoroughly examine and resolve” their issues. Suraj added that the government had already received a massive committee report – 79 individual reports totalling about 800 pages – and that a decision was imminent.

He also asked the agitating teachers to send a representative delegation for detailed talks with the administration. Satisfied with the promise of a prompt review, the eight organisations agreed to suspend the agitation, at least until the next Assembly session.

While the protest has been paused, the underlying grievances remain. All eyes now turn to the state’s next steps – will the promised scrutiny translate into concrete action? Only time will tell.