After months of delay & statewide protests, govt releases aided college salary funds

Bowing to sustained pressure from the Punjab and Chandigarh College Teachers’ Union (PCCTU), the state government has finally released the pending salary grants for aided colleges. In aided colleges across Punjab, discontent had been brewing for nearly a year over the state government’s failure to release salary grants.

Teachers in aided colleges had not been receiving their full salaries as the state government failed to release funds under the grant-in-aid scheme to college managements, which in turn could pay only partial salaries to faculty members.

An emergency meeting of the executive committee of the PCCTU was held last week, with representatives from 38 colleges in attendance. During the meeting, it was announced that a massive protest would be held in Finance Minister Harpal Cheema’s constituency, Dirba, against the non-release of salary grants for 136 aided colleges pending with the Finance Department since March.

“The state government has released salary grants up to October for 136 colleges. At least teachers will now be able to receive their salaries till October. Colleges are already facing a decline in teaching staff due to multiple factors, and financial distress only worsens the problem,” said PCCTU (Punjab) chairperson Seema Jaitley, who is also a faculty member at BBK DAV College, Amritsar.

Earlier, the government released salary grants on a quarterly basis. However, salary grant bills of 38 colleges had been pending since March and those of 93 colleges since August with the Finance Department. As a result, teachers in 38 colleges were deprived of salaries for the past nine months, while teachers in 93 colleges had not been paid for the last four months.

All India Federation of College Teachers’ Organisations vice-president Dr Vinay Sofat said the organisation had been in continuous communication for several weeks with Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema, the Finance Secretary, the Education Secretary and other senior officials. “Joint action by principals, teachers and college managements worked this time,” he said.

Jaitley said it was unbearable that colleges were already reeling under an acute shortage of teachers.

Questioning the functioning of the AAP government, Finance Minister Harpal Cheema and Education Minister Harjot Bains, PCCTU state secretary Dr Sukhdev Singh Randhawa said teachers in Punjab had been deprived of their legitimate financial dues, calling it a dangerous precedent.