Teachers call off strike

DHARWAD: Teachers of unaided Kannada medium schools and pre-university colleges who were agitating for the past 71 days demanding grant-in-aid in Dharwad called off the strike on Thursday following the state government’s decision to release salary grants.
Announcing this on Thursday, member of legislative council and former education minister Basavaraj Horatti, who was leading a padayatra of agitating teachers to Bangalore from Dharwad, said that the yatra and agitation were called off after chief minister D V Sadanand Gowda issued an instruction to finance secretary Anilkumar Jha on Wednesday night to lift the ban on release of funds under grant-in-aid to the schools started between 1987 and 1994-95.
As per the order Rs 111 crore will be released for the payment of salary grant.Following this, minister for primary and secondary education Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri on Thursday announced that the department would commence clearing of proposals sent by schools immediately. Principle secretary of the department of primary and secondary education G Kumar Nayak had also issued a statement in this regard.Horatti, returned to the tent in which teachers are staging hunger strike where he made the announcement Horatti on behalf of the coordination committee of teachers of unaided private schools seeking grants also thanked chief minister D V Sadanand Gowda, primary and secondary education minister Kageri, chairman of Karnataka legislative council D H Shankar Murthy, former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa for responding to the pleas of the teachers and taking steps to release of grants.