Patna, Nov 2 (IANS): The Bihar governnment on Thursday decided to move the Supreme Court against the Patna High Court order on equal pay for equal work to thousands of schoolteachers hired on contract in the state.

Education Department Principal Secretary R.K. Mahajan gave information to the media here in this regard.

Education Minister Krishnandan Verma held a meeting with top officials after the Patna High Court's order on Tuesday, wherein officials told him that the Education Department will have to spend Rs 15,000 more per teacher in case the state government went ahead to ensure pay parity to nearly 3.5 lakh schoolteachers working on contract, informed sources said.

The High Court had ordered that the demand of contractual schoolteachers for equal salaries for equal work was right and had to be met.

The contractual teachers had earlier staged protests in support of their demand for parity in salaries with government teachers.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had expressed disappointment over the protests and said their salary parity demand would not be met.