3,700 MU employees unpaid

Gaya: Nearly 3,700 teaching and non-teaching employees of undivided Magadh University have not been paid their emoluments for three months now.

This involves two dozen post graduate departments, 44 constituent and four government-funded minority colleges Around 1,400 of the 3,700 unpaid employees are teachers and the others non-teachers.

The last pay packet they received was for November 2017. Three days from now, the dues will be for four months. To add to their woes, they have to pay income tax for 2017-18.

Grade four employees of the university are the worst hit. The number of grade 4 employees is estimated to be around 1,000. On an average, a grade 4 employee gets Rs 20,000 a month. Ninety per cent of the grade 4 employees live in rented accommodation. According to Arjun (name changed), an employee of Gaya College, Gaya, he had to borrow money from a local money lender to pay house rent. He also had no money to purchase books and stationery for his schoolgoing daughter who is to join her new class next week.

Confirming non-payment of salary to the employees, vice-chancellor Prof Qamar Ahsan said the delay was on account of non-receipt of the salary grant. The state government gives grants to the university for salary payment. “Payment will be made as and when the salary grant is received,” Ahsan said.

Sources in the education department say the government has decided to change the mode of grant release. Instead of RTGS transfer to the university account, the payment will now be made through the treasury in the district headquarters in Gaya.

The modalities of the new arrangement are being worked out. Payment till February 2018 might be made as per the old arrangement. But salary from March onward would certainly be routed through the treasury. The mode, according to an education department official, is being changed to plug leakages, prevent payment to illegal appointees and check arbitrary pay fixation by the universities.

Treasury payment will also introduce uniformity in the payment system, the official said. The government earlier established a pay verification cell in the state secretariat to crosscheck pay fixation done at the university level.

According to Kanhaiyya Bahadur Sinha, state president of the Federation of the Association of University Teachers of Bihar, university employees elsewhere in the state, too, have not been paid salary for the last three months.

Courtesy: The Telegraph