Hours after 20 female teachers in Uttar Pradesh’s Siddharthnagar district were deputed to help brides get ready for a mass wedding programme on Monday, the administration rolled back its order, ANI reported.

The district’s Basic Education Officer Surya Kant Tripathi passed an order cancelling Naugarh Block Education Officer Dhruv Prasad’s circular and suggested an investigation against him, reported The Times of India. The mass wedding programme will be held under the Adityanath-led state government’s ‘Mukhyamantri Samoohik Vivaah Yojana’.

The teachers were asked to be present at the venue at 9 am. However, the order garnered criticism from educators. “It is completely unacceptable to ask teachers to deck up the brides,” said Uttar Pradesh Primary Teachers’ Association state president Sushil Pandey.

An unidentified teacher, reportedly one of the 20 deputed for the task, told the newspaper that they are blamed for the declining quality of education and for not attending school. “The government feels that we are so short of work that we can now help brides with their makeups,” the teacher said.