State government will recruit 32,000 school teachers by March next year of which 14,000 upper primary and 10,500 primary teachers will be recruited before Durga Puja itself, announced chief minister Mamata Banerjee at Nabanna today.

“All recruitments will be based on merit. There is no need for lobbying. Those who cleared their written exams will be eligible for recruitment and merit will be the sole criteria during appointment. The recruitments had been stalled as court cases were on. Now, we will go ahead with the recruitment. A total of 24,500 teachers will be appointed this year before Durga Puja and another 7,500 teachers will be appointed within March 2022,” said Miss Banerjee at a press conference.

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It may be mentioned here that candidates who had qualified the eligibility tests had gone for several rounds of agitation demanding jobs. Prior to the polls, Miss Banerjee had assured to look into the matter.

Announcing that Bengal has bagged six out of 10 positions in skill competition, Miss Banerjee today formed a committee headed by former chief secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay to provide suggestions on increasing avenues for providing more skill based training to students and arrange placements for them. Mr Bandopadhyay has been asked to submit a report in this connection within 15 days.

Meanwhile, Miss Banerjee said that the state government is taking all measures to combat the third wave of Covid. “Children have to be taken care of. Along with them, mothers too have to be careful. We have to ensure the health of both mother and child. We are increasing hospital beds for accommodating children,” she said.

According to Miss Banerjee the Covid situation has significantly improved in West Bengal with the positivity rate dipping down to four per cent compared to 32 per cent that was registered when the eight-phase elections was being held in the state. Miss Banerjee said that a few districts namely North 24 Parganas and Howrah have registered slightly more number of Covid cases while caseload has decreased in Kolkata.

“We have already provided two crore vaccines and another 17 lakh vaccines will be given,” she added.

She further directed officials to be cautious in view of the weather alert of a severe high tide on 26 June. DVC has released water and there is heavy rainfall in neighbouring states of Bihar and Jharkhand along with Bengal, she said, adding that dead bodies from Uttar Pradesh have contaminated river water with some bodies being recovered in Malda. The state government has cremated those, she said.