Two-hundred-and-thirteen students and research scholars at the Forest College and Research Institute, Mettupalayam boycotted classes on Tuesday.
A representative of the students said that the protestors’ demands were two – they want the State Government to repeal Government Order 76, issued in 2014, that reduced the reservation in appointment to the post of Forest Range Officers to 25 per cent and threw open the gates to students of other disciplines.
This GO took away the 100 per cent preferential treatment they got from Government Order 118 or 2010. They wanted the Government to bring back to force the 2010 order, he said.
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The second demand was to withdraw the notification issued by the Tamil Nadu Forest Uniformed Services Recruitment Committee calling for application for the post of Foresters. Here again, the State Government had thrown open the gate to graduates of all disciplines. It had said the recruitment test would have only two papers, with none being a specialised paper on forestry.
This was not the case if the Government were to recruit candidates to the Agriculture Department or engineering services. So, why was it discriminating against the forestry students, he asked and wanted the Government to provide reservation for forestry students in Forester appointment as well.
The students had earlier abstained from classes on January 12 to highlight these demands.
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They had then said that it was only a token boycott and that they would go in for indefinite protest if the Government did not accede to their demands.