Firing the first salvo, the disgruntled State government has instructed the junior college managements to intiate disciplinary action against the striking teachers even as the students continue to hold their breath on their board exams.

An official government communique that landed at the offices of deputy director of education. It has asked the officers to contact the college managements for slapping show cause notices on the teachers. Coupled with this, the State has put into force `no-work-no-pay' rule which enables blocking the salaries of the agitating teachers. ``Besides this in the disciplinary action, increments of the striking teachers can be withheld and even monetary penalty can be slapped if they fail to give a satisfactory justification for not reporting to duty,"S Z Khatib , assistant education director (Pune region) conceded to The Indian Express.

Khatib further said termination of services could be taken in cases where the teachers are found to be deliberately causing `educational loss' to the students. Meanwhile, the entire education machinery has been put on the move by the government with several provisions being made to complete the syllabus on time, especially in the case of higher secondary students.

So much so thatyesterday special `messengers' carrying instruction letters to the college managements were dispatched from the office of deputy director.

V G Joshi, deputy director of education (Pune region) said that the services of part-time teachers and those on special pay duty are being temporarily upgraded to full-time status. ``If the need be, the teachers on clock-hour-basis will be also deployed on the task or in still worse cases the fresh appointments will be made on temporary basis.'', he added. ``In Raigad, Solapur and Ahmednagar districts the situation has improved considerably. However, in Pune since most junior colleges are attached to senior colleges the situation is still not satisfactory,"said Khatib.

"We are closely monitoring the situation and making arrangements so that from Thursday the academic work resumes to normalcy in Pune also," he added. Out of the total 4047 full time teachers in the Pune region, only 2832 are on strike. Besides all the part-time, special pay and clock-hour basis teachers numbering about 1500 collectively are on duty. With the State putting its foot firmly down, apprehensions of a possible break up of the strike have also started bothering the teachers' union.