Chief Ministers of West Bengal and Gujarat will also address students on Teacher's Day.
September 5 this year could be more about celebrating political leaders than honouring teachers.
Taking a cue from the Prime Minister, Chief Ministers of two states - Bengal's Mamata Banerjee and Gujarat's Anandiben Patel -- have decided to address schoolchildren on Teachers' Day. A third - Haryana's Bhupinder Singh Hooda - pulled back just in time, announcing by Tuesday evening that he had no such programme.
But the "politicisation" of Teachers' Day had already started drawing barbs.
Although HRD minister Smriti Irani has clarified that the order to schools to get the children to listen to the PM was not compulsory, few political leaders were inclined to listen to her.
"Teachers day is being used for propaganda," said Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan.
His Jammu and Kashmir counterpart Omar Abdullah said, "I too have celebrated Teachers' Day as a student, but haven't heard such diktats. It has to be voluntary, this is like North Korea".
"It is unfortunate that the HRD ministry has created a needless controversy over the Teachers' Day celebrations," the Aam Aadmi Party said in a statement.
For the schools and the students all of this translates to considerable trouble.
Not only will the school timings have to be changed, the school authorities would have to arrange for the requisite equipment - television sets and projectors, amplifiers, generators and inverters.
In Bengal and Gujarat, it will be a long day for the children, who'll have to listen to two speeches. And in many schools, teachers will have to forego the usual festivities.
"We make arrangements to take the teachers out, but this year, after spending Rs 70,000, we had to cancel our plans," said Annie Koshy, Principal, St Mary's School in Delhi.
The icing on the cake? While government schools will receive compensation for the expenses incurred, private schools will have to foot their own bill for the programme.