Regular college teachers await Feb salary

Teachers posted at local government colleges have not received their salaries for February as the administration has failed to release the budget. Sources claimed more than 3,000 faculty members of various colleges were yet to get their salaries.

“The matter will be resolved soon. The problem (non-release of salary) is being faced by other departments of the UT Administration as well,” said a senior functionary of the Higher Education Department. “The salary of non-teaching staff and contractual teaching staff has been released, but not of the regular employees,” said the sources. The teachers of the postgraduate government colleges of Sectors 42, 46, 50, 11 and others are affected, barring the Post Graduate Government College for Girls, Sector 11. The salary of a regular teaching staff at these colleges varies from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 3 lakh.

“The regular faculty of only one out of the five government colleges have received the salary to date. It has happened for the first time in the past 15 years. Otherwise, the salary for March usually gets delayed due to some technical issues,” said Dr Prashant Gaurav, president,

Government College Teachers Association, Chandigarh.

A year after adopting central service rules for its employees from April 1, 2022, the notification of its implementation was issued in 2023. During his visit to Chandigarh on March 27, 2022, Home Minister Amit Shah had announced that Central service rules would be implemented in Chandigarh. The new Central service rules replaced the Punjab service rules.

“The necessary approvals and fund arrangement should have been made well in advance. Most employees in the Education Department are finding it hard to pay their monthly instalments for home loans as well as personal loans. We will soon meet the officials and request them to expedite the process of releasing the pending salaries,” said Dr Manoj Kumar, general secretary, Chandigarh Government College Teachers Association.