Over 62,000 para-teachers of Jharkhand, the backbone of school education in the state, will now be called assistant teachers, get to work till 60 like regular government employees and be entitled to annual pay increments on the basis of merit.

These decisions were ratified by the state cabinet on Wednesday, the Hemant Soren government's way of honouring its pre-electioin commitment and putting a lid on the decade-long agitation by para-teachers whose primary demands have been job regularisation, decent pay and leave at par with regular government teachers.

On Thursday, para-teachers were celebrating across districts under the aegis of Ekakrit Para Shikshak Sangh Morcha (EPSSM), an umbrella outfit of para-teachers. They thanked the JMM-Congress-RJD coalition government for fulfilling its promised to them in the run up to the 2019 Assembly elections.

Para-teachers were till now being paid anything between Rs 12,000 to 15,000 per month based on seniority. But the payments were often erratic, sometime pending for months.

After the cabinet decision, an official in the state education department clarified, the salary of trained para-teachers (those who have cleared the teacher eligibility test) would be increased by 50% with effect from January 1, 2022. “Additionally, para-techers would also be given another 10 per cent hike based on a merit test. Non-TET passed para-teachers will get 40% hike. We have also made provisions for an annual hike of about 4 per cent,” he said.

Since mid-2020, the para-teachers' morcha has been holding several rounds of protests, including a dharna and gherao of the Assembly premises, to remind the Hemant government of its poll promise. Before that, they held similar protests during the tenure of the erstwhile Raghubar Das government between 2014 and 2019.

Tension between the BJP government in the state and para-teachers took a violent turn after para-teachers were brutally lathicharged during the Statehood Day function in November 2018 when they had held a demonstration near the venue of the function at Morhabadi. For many, this was one of the primary reasons behind the fall of Raghubar Das government in the 2019 Assembly elections.

Sanjay Dubey, a senior officer-bearer of the morcha, said on Thursday that para-teachers had begun their movement in November 2004, and had been raising the issue of their job terms and compensation with successive state governments. He said even now not all their demands had been fulfilled, but added that they were happy the state government had started to walk the talk.

“We are happy that we will now be called assistant teachers and our grievances will be addressed. The government has also allowed us to work till 60, agreed to provide compensatory jobs in the event of death of a para-teacher, allow medical leave and performance based annual pay hikes. But one of our key demands—providing pay-scale (grade pay) _ is still pending," he said, adding that the state government had, however, assured them that it would consider it.