Teachers of 97 govt-aided colleges in Haryana seek time to meet Education Minister

Ravinder Saini

Rohtak, June 16

Teachers of 97 government-aided colleges across the state are feeling ‘ignored’ as their long-standing demands have been lying unaddressed despite raising these before the state authorities many times in the past.

45% posts lying vacant

The state government is executing the New Education Policy in the government-aided colleges but then more than 45 per cent posts of teaching and non-teaching staff are lying vacant there. Dayanand Malik, President, HCTA

The Haryana Colleges Teachers’ Association (HCTA), a body of teachers, has now sought time from Education Minister Seema Trikha to make her aware about their plight by writing a letter in this respect. Seema, an MLA from Badkhal (Faridabad), was made the Education Minister before the declaration of the Lok Sabha polls.

“Since Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini and Education Minister Seema Trikha are new, it is our duty to make them aware of our long-standing demands. At present, our association has sought time from the Education Minister in writing. Thereafter, we will also call on the CM. She is likely to call us within a couple of days to hear our problems,” said Dayanand Malik, president, HCTA.

He said the association had mainly been raising four demands pertaining to the recruitment, house rent allowance, death-cum-retirement gratuity and medical facilities.

“The state government is executing the New Education Policy (NEP) in the aided colleges but then more than 45 per cent posts of teaching (1,290) and non-teaching staff (810) are lying vacant there. How can the NEP be efficiently executed in an acute shortage of employees in the aided colleges? Hence we demand the government to lift the ban on recruitment so that all vacant posts can be filled. The ban was imposed in December last year,” said Malik.

He said the revised house rent allowance had already been implemented for the employees of all government departments, universities, board, corporation and all government-aided polytechnic colleges in the state from 2019 under the Seventh Central Pay Commission (CPC) but the government-aided colleges’ employees were still deprived of it while a proposal in this respect was lying pending with the state authorities.

Similarly, neither the medical facility nor death-cum-retirement gratuity (DCRG) was being provided to the government-aided colleges, he claimed.

“The New Pension Scheme that was executed by the Centre in 2004 and the Haryana Government in 2006 did not extend the benefit of the DCRG but the Central Government in August 2016 restored the benefits to all employees. The suit was also followed by the state government in January 2017 but the employees of the government-aided private colleges have not yet been included in the decision,” said Malik.