Extraordinary pension to wife of slain teacher approved
The teacher was murdered on March 17, following which evaluation work at several centres came to a halt as his colleagues demanded adequate financial compensation for the victim’s family and swift action against the accused.
LUCKNOW: Amidst protests by teachers following the murder of Varanasi teacher Dharmendra Kumar in Muzaffarnagar by a head constable, the state government has approved an extraordinary pension for the deceased’s wife. Dharmendra’s wife will now receive a pension equivalent to his basic salary until the completion of his tenure. Thereafter, she will receive a normal pension.
Following Dharmendra Kumar’s murder, secondary teachers boycotted the evaluation of UP board answer sheets, leading to disruptions in the evaluation process. Dibyakant Shukla, secretary of the UP Board, issued an appeal on Tuesday urging teachers to return to work as their demands had been presented to the government.
The teacher was murdered on March 17, following which evaluation work at several centres came to a halt as his colleagues demanded adequate financial compensation for the victim’s family and swift action against the accused. In response, the government took immediate action and approved compensation of ₹25 lakhs. However, the teachers’ continued to protest and boycott evaluation work from March 23, demanding a compensation of ₹2 crores for Dharmendra Kumar’s family. Additionally, they insisted that non-educational tasks should not be assigned to secondary school teachers and advocated for Dharmendra Kumar’s wife should be given full salary in the form of a pension.
On Wednesday, Alok Kumar, special secretary of the secondary education, granted approval for an extraordinary pension to Kumar’s wife.
Furthermore, teachers have been relieved from the duty of transporting bundles of answer sheets from evaluation centres to UP Board’s regional offices. UP Board secretary Dibyakant Shukla sent a communication to all district inspectors of schools (DIOSs) on March 26, instructing that teachers should not be assigned to ferry the bundles of answer sheets to evaluation centres. Instead, only non-teaching staff should be assigned for this task, as stated in the communication, a copy of which is with HT.