PATNA: Magadh University Teachers’ Association (Muta) submitted a memorandum to Governor Debanand Konwar at Raj Bhawan here on Friday and sought his direct intervention to save the university and college teachers from being further humiliated in the society. These hapless teachers are being paid part payment of their salaries even after a long gap of about six months.

Instead of making full payment of their salaries, the government has drastically reduced the salary grants to the university forcing it to pay only 72 per cent of their salaries, Muta president A K Singh Thakur said.

According to him, the Muta has urged the governor, who happens to be chancellor of the varsities, chief minister Nitish Kumar and HRD minister Harinarain Singh to intervene in the matter directly so that full salaries for five months could be paid to the university and college teachers after a long wait. Teachers who are solely dependent on salaries are finding it extremely difficult to subsist their livelihood, the Muta president said.

He regretted that while teachers have been engaging their classes sincerely and following all UGC guidelines, teaching and non-teaching employees of the university have been denied all their privileges, including their promotions and other incentives, as specified by the UGC from time to time. In fact, the HRD department which is functioning at the whims of a `babu’, is out to humiliate the university and college teachers. How can the HRD department expect teachers to perform their duty with full heart and soul while no full salary and promotion are being given to them even after 30 years of their
service?, he asked, adding the government has deducted Ph.D increments from salaries of teachers and demoted many of them
without any valid reason.

Thakur criticised the state government and university for not following high court orders in most of the cases causing deep resentment among teaching and non-teaching employees. He urged the chancellor’s office to send the recent directives of the chancellor to all colleges of university so that they could be followed strictly in MU to maintain academic ambience on each college campus.

The MUTA president announced that members of the association would be forced to commit self-immolation in front of Raj Bhawan if their long pending and genuine demands, including implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission report as envisaged by the UGC for university and college teachers, are fulfilled soon in the state like other states. The state government had earlier categorically maintained that it would ensure implementation of the UGC package in toto in the larger interest of teachers, but to no avail so far, he said.

Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com