While they have put masks covering their mouths, DU staff is seething as they remain unpaid since May. It has been more than three months now and the situation has worsened for the teaching as well as non-teaching staff of 12 DU colleges.
The government, recently, bluntly blamed “DU’s corrupt practices” in response to the Central University’s silent yells.
DELHI GOVERNMENT’S TAKE AND WAR OF WORDS
Delhi government has said it has released 23% of this year’s funds for 12 colleges fully funded by it. However, these colleges have been struggling to pay their staff and their bills and they blamestormed “shortage of funds”.
On August 7, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia blamed the college’s corrupt practices for this. To clarify, he declared that there has been a 70% budget increase in five years.
The university waived off the allegations and claimed there was an 80-100% increase in expenditure on account of salary and a 300-500% increase in non-salary expenditure since 2014 across the 12 colleges. The Delhi government has ordered a financial audit of seven colleges.
DU STAFF GO WITHOUT SALARIES SINCE MAY
Dr. Sujit Kumar, a professor at Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar College for 27 years now, is among those who have been plunked down. He said that while the situation is bad for teachers, it is worse for contractual and daily wage employees of the college.
“We have not been paid for May, June, July, and now August. I’m very sad to say that I now have to ask relatives and friends for money for household expenses. Imagine how hard this is for contractual workers who only make Rs 15,000 per month. Above all, this morning I couldn’t even take my class – my son had to use my laptop to write his OBE and I was left with my non-functional desktop which I have not been able to repair. Next month, I won’t be able to pay for high-speed internet,” he said. (Source: The Indian Express, 18.08.20)
Another such teaching faculty member caught in a crossfire is Dr. Mahaveer, who teaches chemistry at Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College. He said that this is half of it. “Ad hoc teachers of the college have not got their summer salaries for 2019 and 2020. Above all, 90% of teachers are waiting for arrears of the Seventh Pay Commission, which is around Rs 18-20 lakh for assistant professors and Rs 8-9 lakh for associate professors. We have not been getting our medical cover. In addition to that, we got our salaries last for the month of April. I have not been able to pay rent for my flat this month and am getting threats from my landlord,” he said.
Across all affected colleges, staff members say such a crisis is unprecedented. “Earlier, the government withheld the funds under no formation of Governing Bodies of the colleges; now they say there is corruption. In all of this, the casualty is staff members who have nothing to do with either of these things. In my 16 years at the university, I have not seen such things happen,” said Dr. Subodh Kumar who teaches Political Science at Maharaja Agrasen College.
While the University has refused to square accounts of the teaching and the non-teaching faculty, all this riles up the DU staff to a grave extent.
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