'Kageri sitting on file'

Scores of teachers, lecturers and members of managements of private unaided schools and colleges camped outside Primary and Secondary Education Minister Vishweshwara Hegde Kageri’s office in Vidhana Soudha since Thursday morning hoping to meet the minister, who they say has been sitting on an ‘important’ file.

Despite the Cabinet giving a go ahead for bringing around 1,500 institutions started before 1994 under the ambit of grant-in-aid, the Minister had not facilitated the process, they alleged. They said that his was the only signature pending, without which the government would not release the money.

The teachers and lecturers said that they had been denied decent salary for several years, and that the Cabinet decision had brought them reprieve. However, the process had been stalled with Kageri remaining inaccessible, they said.

Former MLC K T Srikantegowda told reporters that the teachers and lecturers had gone without salaries for more than three years. “As a result they have become an anxious lot. The minister should dispose of the files as soon as possible,” he said.

Kageri had not come into his office till late Friday evening.