Professsors from 12 DU colleges get full salary after 3 months of delay

Professors from 12 Delhi University-affiliated colleges were facing a financial crisis for nearly three months due to non-payment of salaries. However, ahead of Diwali, the crisis has ended as the grants have finally been released and professors have been paid their full salaries till September.

The DU colleges said that the Delhi government did not release the grants, which led to a delay in the payment of professors, IANS reported.

These 12 colleges were- Bhimrao Ambedkar College, Shaheed Rajguru College of Applied Sciences, Indira Gandhi Institute of Physical Education, Maharaja Agrasen College, Bhaskaracharya College, Acharya Narendra Dev College, Maharishi Valmiki College, Keshav Mahavidyalaya, Deendayal Upadhyaya College, Bhagini Nivedita College, Aditi Mahavidyalaya, Shaheed Sukhdev College.

Ad-hoc teachers, guest teachers, and contractual teachers constitute upto 50 to 60 per cent of employees in the above mentioned colleges, the media report said, adding that most of them live in rented houses and were worried over the non-payment of EMIs and instalments.

“This issue of irregular salaries has existed for nearly two-and-a-half to three years now. Before that, we had never faced such a problem,” Bhupinder Chaudhary, an associate professor at Maharaja Agrasen College told the Wire in September.

The colleges would take loans from the Student Society Fund (SSF) to pay the salaries of teachers and staff and would repay them once the grant was released by the Delhi government.

When asked why DUTA and other teachers oppose the utilisation of the SSF for salaries, Narender Thakur, an associate professor at Bhim Rao Ambedkar College said, “Giving salaries is the responsibility of the government. Otherwise it would amount to introducing privatisation through the back door.”

On October 17, Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government released the grants after Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) National Teachers’ Organization, Academic for Action and Development Delhi Teachers’ Association’s (AADTA) office bearers Professor NK Pandey, Professor Manoj Kumar Singh, former Academic Council member Dr. Hansraj Suman, met Delhi cabinet minister Gopal Rai on this issue.