The Higher Education department’s sluggish approach is depriving hundreds of contractual lecturers of timely payment of salaries during every session. As a result they receive salary occasionally and not on a monthly schedule.
Many of the contractual staff working in various Government Degree Colleges (GDCs) of Jammu region complains that they have not been paid since September. One contractual teacher in a Government Degree College said that they have not been paid even a single month’s salary since September. He said that in some colleges in Jammu, salaries of the past few months were paid in opening months of this year but even this payment was not done on a regular monthly basis.
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Another contractual faculty working in a Kashmiri college said that even though their session starts in March-April every year but they too, like others, have not been paid salary monthly by the College authorities. He said that their payments for the month of January and February 2021 are still pending, while the salary of more than four months was paid in December 2020.
The contractual faculty members said that it becomes very hard for them to manage their daily expenses without regular monthly payments. They have to manage it from whatever savings they have or to borrow money from their relatives or parents which is not feasible in the long run. They said that when they have been employed on a monthly basis then their payments should also be done on the same.
A department official told Early Times that College authorities and the Higher Education department have failed to provide regular remuneration to contractual lecturers. The official said that salaries of those who are working for regular posts in colleges have to be paid from the budget sanctioned by the Department from the Secretariat level. A major reason behind delay in these remunerations is the lazy approach of the clerical staff of colleges and the Higher Education Department at the Secretariat level.
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The contractual faculties have requested Lieutenant Governor MK Sinha to look into the matter. They have demanded that they should be paid on a monthly basis and not months together.
