VARSITY STAFF THREATEN MASS LEAVE ON OCT 3 Saturday, 28 September 2013 | PNS | BALANGIR | in Bhubaneswar

VARSITY STAFF THREATEN MASS LEAVE ON OCT 3

Saturday, 28 September 2013 | PNS | BALANGIR | in Bhubaneswar

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Demanding UGC pay-scale, representation of employees in Senates and Syndicates, regularisation of services of casual and contractual workers, recruitment of adequate staff to cope with the increasing workload in the universities, members of the All India University Employees’ Confederation (AIUEC) have threatened to go on one-day mass casual leave on October 3 throughout the country.

According to a Press release issued by AIUEC president Bhabani Shankar Hota, on September 25, employees of around 180 universities in 22 States observed cease-work for two hours as per the decision at National Council of the AIUEC held at the Bangalore University on August 30 and 31.

Hota said that about 50 per cent of the nonteaching posts are lying vacant in various universities hampering the day-to-day administration and leading to stunted growth of the universities. Everyone starting from the Union Human Resources Development Minister to the Chairman of the UGC has categorically said that nonteaching staff form an integral part of the university administration. But acute shortage of the staff still continues unresolved.

The Union Government has been systematically neglecting the public-funded universities and other institutions of higher education and, on the other hand, encouraging private investment in some selected professional streams and is also bent upon inviting foreign universities, alleged Hota. This is meant to damage the public-funded universities so as to justify the large-scale entry of private and foreign investments in higher education, he said.

The AIUEC demands allocation of at least 6 per cent of the GDP for education as is being promised from time to time for the last 27 years. The Congress-led UPA also committed 6 per cent of the GDP for education in its Common Minimum Programme in 2004 but did not care to implement it, Hota said.