A protest over alleged irregularities in Dhanbad’s government-school teacher transfers intensified after JMM Tundi MLA Mathura Das Mahto joined Nirsa MLA Arup Chatterjee’s hunger strike outside the office of the district deputy commissioner. The protest entered its third day on Thursday, with the legislators demanding action on teacher postings and an early meeting of the district elementary education committee.
Mahto alleged that rural government schools in Dhanbad have fewer teachers than required for their student strength because teachers have been seeking postings in urban schools. He also claimed that several teachers had continued in city schools for more than 15 years, despite a five-year tenure norm.
The dispute covers 1,736 government schools across the district, which together have more than 3,000 teachers, according to details reported by the Times of India. The figures indicate the scale of the district’s public-school network, although the report does not provide a school-wise breakdown of teacher vacancies, student enrolment or the distribution of staff between rural and urban areas.
The protest followed administrative action against teacher deputations. A total of 91 deputations have been cancelled, and the affected teachers have been asked to return to their parent schools. The move was reported after Chatterjee began the hunger strike over the transfer and posting issue.
Dhanbad deputy commissioner Aditya Ranjan said the action had been initiated in the previous month. He added that the decision was notified on November 3. The official response establishes that the cancellation of the 91 deputations was an administrative decision, while the allegations concerning irregularities and the unequal distribution of teachers remain part of the legislators’ claims.
Mahto and Chatterjee have sought an early meeting of the district elementary education committee to address the postings. Such a meeting would provide the administrative forum for examining the transfer decisions, the tenure rule cited in the protest and the deployment of teachers across the district’s rural and urban government schools.
The issue places teacher deployment at the centre of a wider public-service challenge: government-school access depends not only on the number of sanctioned posts, but also on where teachers are actually posted. In Dhanbad, the immediate dispute is over whether the existing posting arrangement is leaving rural schools short-staffed while teachers remain in urban institutions.
The hunger strike was continuing outside the deputy commissioner’s office when Mahto joined it. The next stated administrative step is an early meeting of the district elementary education committee, while the 91 teachers affected by the cancellation of their deputations have been directed to return to their parent schools.
