MU staff unpaid since Sept
2 min readGaya: A dry Holi stares at 7,872 teaching and non-teaching staff and pensioners of 44 constituent and four government-funded minority colleges under Magadh University. They were last paid in September.
These employees and pensioners received their last pay packet in September. The low-paid Grade IV employees – who are paid from monthly grant released by the government – are the worst sufferers.
The affected people include 3,729 working employees and 4,103 pensioners. Pensioners outnumber regular employees. The university has stopped recruiting non-teaching staff and outsourced many non-teaching positions.
In any case, the university is grossly understaffed as, out of the 3,093 sanctioned teacher posts, 1,681 are vacant. Number of working teachers is 1,412. There are 3,186 sanctioned posts for non-teachers but the number of non-teaching employees is 2,317.
On account of non-payment of salary, some of the teachers have quit and migrated out of the state.
Quite a few others are looking for options outside, said a recently recruited teacher.
Conceding that the university employees have not been paid for several months, vice-chancellor Prof Qamar Ahsan said the university has borrowed money to provide some relief to employees before Holi on March 2.
Asked about details, the VC said Rs 15 crore has been borrowed from the university’s principle banker to make part payment of the outstanding salary to the headquarters’ employees and pensioners. The borrowed amount would clear salary and pension dues of headquarter employees and pensioners till December 2017. Colleges, too, have been advised to borrow money to make payment before Holi, Ahsan said.
“Things have never been so bad,” said Kanhaiya Bahadur Sinha, president of the Federation of University Teachers Association of Bihar.
Even during the infamous Lalu-Rabri regime, teachers and other employees did not remain unpaid for so long.
He wondered what would happen if vacant positions get filled up.
“Non-payment and other harassment faced by teachers was causing brain-drain from the state,” Sinha said.
Courtesy: The Telegraph
