From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore

Bangalore, Dec 27: A day after four high school teachers attempted suicide by consuming pesticide during their protest agitation at Bangalore’s Freedom Park demanding grant-in-aid to schools, two JD(S) MLCs, Puttanna and Marithibbe Gowda, staged a protest in front of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s office at Vidhana Soudha on Friday seeking grant-in-aid to schools opened before 1994-95.

The two JD(S) MLCs alleged that the government had in 2007 decided to provide grant-in-aid to Kannada-medium primary and secondary schools and pre-university colleges started by private managements between 1987 and 1995.

While some schools were given grant-in-aid, the government had stopped providing grants in 2009 during the north Karnataka floods citing austerity measures, the claimed.

The two JD(S) MLCs demanded sacking of Higher Education Minister R V Deshpande from the Cabinet and punishment to alleged corrupt officials.

Holding banners, the two MLCs staged the protest for more than two hours,

The protesting MLCs alleged that Deshpande has been protecting corrupt Higher Education Department Principal Secretary Rajneesh Goyal, who allegedly received bribes in the promotion of lecturers in engineering colleges in 2010.

They urged the Government to handover alleged recruitment scam in the Higher Education Department to the Karnataka Lok Ayukta.

They also demanded suspension of Technical Education Director H U Talwar for alleged recruitment in the higher education department.

The Government has not released pay-scales of University Grants Commission and All India Council for Technical Education for college lecturers. The guest lecturers have been paid negligible amount of salary.

Both JD(S) leaders demanded payment of Rs 25,000 salary a month to guest lecturers in colleges.