Salary of college contractual lecturers slashed

SRINAGAR — After abolishing State Civil Service Cadre and scraping age relaxation, Jammu and Kashmir government has slashed the monthly remuneration of NET qualified college contractual lecturers from Rs 28000 to Rs 15000, the daily Kashmir Monitor reported.

Likewise, the salary of non-NET qualified lecturers have been slashed to Rs 12000 from Rs 22000.

Every year, the government hires services of hundreds of teachers on academic arrangement basis in the higher education department.

In December last year, the government had constituted a five-member committee to examine all the aspects related to the hiring and remuneration of academic arrangements in various departments of education.

The committee has recommended that the “minimum remuneration to the candidates engaged on academic arrangement shall be Rs 12000 per month in respect of non-gazetted post, and Rs 15000 per month in respect of gazetted posts”.

The committee has noted that “the regularization of lecturers would be inappropriate in a view of the fact that contractual arrangement between government and the people is clear and such arrangement does not amount to regular appointment and would also be violative of equal opportunity to others”.

Earlier, contractual lecturers who had qualified National Eligibility Test (NET) were being paid Rs 28000 per month while others were paid Rs 22000. Their salaries were enhanced in 2018 from Rs 18000 for NET qualifiers and Rs 12000 for others.

“From the last seven months, we are jobless. We were time and again verbally assured of job security,” said Dr Yousuf, one of the senior contractual lecturers.

On January 06, Advisor to Governor, KK Sharma assured them continuation of their service but till date nothing has been done, he said.

“Now this order has sent shock waves. Our salaries have been slashed to Rs 15000 and Rs 12000 instead of Rs 28000 and Rs 22000 respectively. It is against labor laws and the Supreme Court ruling of equal pay for equal work,” he added.

Spokesperson of JK College Contractual Teachers Association demanded continuation of all those candidates who were in the system till July last year. “Release of salary from August 2019, and salaries should be according to the previous scale,” he said.

Secretary Higher Education Talat Parvaiz Rohella, said department can give suitable pay to the faculty, starting from Rs 12000-15000.

“Contractual lecturers in Technical Education were getting Rs 7000 which was extremely less. Last year order to appoint contractual lecturers on need basis, has not been implemented. In this session the faculty will be appointed as per this order,” he said.