NEW DELHI: Delhi University colleges like St Stephen’s, Miranda House and a few others have not disbursed salaries of their teaching and non-teaching staff for February. The employees, especially the non-teaching staff, are particularly aggrieved at not getting their due payments even at Holi, leaving them in financial difficulties at a festive time. The colleges said they hadn’t been able to give their staff their salaries because they hadn’t received funds from the University Grants Commission (UGC), which is the central government funding agency.A teacher at St. Stephen’s College said, “In over three decades of my career, I had never faced such an issue. It is Holi now and the salary hasn’t been paid yet. This causes difficulties, particularly for the non-teaching staff. When we asked the authorities, we were told funds from UGC hadn’t yet been received.”St. Stephen’s College and Lady Shri Ram College are trust-run institutions that receive 95% of their funds from UGC. Miranda House is a DU-maintained college that receives 100% funding from UGC. Even Dyal Singh College, a university-maintained college, has not been disbursing salaries in time. Staff of Zakir Husain College and Shyamlal College too haven’t been paid. The teachers of Sri Venkateswara College received their salary only on Tuesday.Asked about the problem, UGC chairman M. Jagadesh Kumar said, “The grants are being processed and the funds will be released soon.”Abha Dev Habib, physics teacher at Miranda House, said, “It is not just this month. We got our salaries late even in the last two months. The principal had said she would find out what was causing the problem.” A teacher at another college remarked, “This is becoming a regular occurrence. The delay in funds reveals the attitude of UGC and the Union education ministry. This attitude is condemnable.”Talking about the genesis of the problem, Rajesh Jha, former DU Executive Council member, said, “When the salaries of permanent teachers and employees were separated from those of the ad-hoc and contractual ones and clubbed under the pension head around two years ago, we had forewarned that this would cause a salary crisis. This crisis is now being used to encourage guest faculty and outsourcing of employees.”
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/colourless-holi-at-du-as-salaries-not-paid/articleshow/98484640.cms
