Acting on the issue raised by Kapil Patil, MLC from the teachers’ constituency, education department joint secretary AM Bhattalwar sent a letter to BMC and the divisional collector, Konkan region, requesting them to exempt secondary and higher secondary teachers from the census 2010 duty.
The state education department has requested the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to exempt teachers from census duty, citing their engagement in examination and online admissions. However, the Central government diktat on census duty may make it difficult for the BMC to conform to their request.
Acting on the issue raised by Kapil Patil, MLC from the teachers’ constituency, education department joint secretary AM Bhattalwar sent a letter to BMC and the divisional collector, Konkan region, requesting them to exempt secondary and higher secondary teachers from the census 2010 duty.
Patil had recently raised the issue in the legislative council. He pointed out that the teachers are already burdened with work related to board examinations.
He also mentioned that the teachers’ involvement in other duties may affect the paper correction work. DNA had earlier reported that teachers may lose their vacation days due to census duty.
However, additional municipal commissioner Manisha Mhaiskar said, “We have received a communication from the education department and we are examining it. However, there are two other communications from the director, census, and the chief secretary of the state government, which clearly state that the census duty is mandatory and it has to be done apart from the routine work. The director has mentioned that employees who have been allotted census work cannot refuse it.”
Mhaiskar added that the BMC is yet to take a decision on excluding secondary and higher secondary teachers from the process. However, sources believe that it is unlikely that teachers would be exempted as the training programme is almost over in most of the regions.
Teachers are however pinning their hopes on the education department’s request. A teacher from a South Mumbai school said, “Today was the third day of the training programme in our region, but it was called off midway. A lot of rumours were floating around. We were told the last session will be taken on some other date. We believed that they have exempted us from the duty. Nobody can refuse this work, but if they consider relieving us, it will definitely be good news.”
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