Taken from New Indian Express.
CHENNAI: What began as a hunger-strike by seven differently-abled persons on Monday to press for equal rights for visually impaired turned into a full-fledged protest on Tuesday with over 250 members of the College Students and Graduates Association for the Blind (CSGAB) joining the stir.
The protest is a follow-up of an earlier campaign in 2013 for recruitment after appearing for the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) conducted by the government.
“The government had promised to fulfil our demands last time, but is yet to. So we have came back,” says R Raja, a member of the association.
“We are not asking for anything new. We just want what has been promised to us,” he said.
Police took the protestors to a marriage hall in Saidapet and released them later in the evening. The agitation stalled peak hour traffic for some time.
“We want to meet the minister and demand what is rightfully ours, we will protest until then,” said Raja.
Of the seven initial protestors, three have PhDs and the rest are post graduates, but all of them are jobless looking for placement.
“The government held a special TET as they had promised, but they did not recruit. Jobs are what we need, what is the use of just a test?” Raja questions.
Secretary of the association, S Ashok Kumar, said they raised nine demands including appointment as teachers for all those visually impaired who passed the TET, a special TET for those who have completed BEd to fill the 550 vacancies.
He also added that Post Graduate Teacher’s Recruitment Board exam for 400 eligible visually impaired post graduates.
They also demanded special transport allowance, an increase in the unemployment allowance and bringing the visually impaired under normal pension scheme as opposed to the Equal Contributory pension scheme.
The protesters are, meanwhile, hoping to meet the Minister for Social Welfare B Valarmathi and seek her intervention in the matter.
Source: New Indian Express.
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