Union flays principals for paying meagre salaries

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, May 16

The Punjab and Chandigarh College Teachers’ Union (PCCTU) organised a meeting of its office-bearers via videoconferencing to discuss the important issue of salary crisis of its teaching cadre across the state amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dr Bhram Ved Sharma, president, and Dr Sukhdev Singh Randhawa, general secretary, condemned college principals across the state for paying meagre salaries to college teachers for April. Prof Ghanshayam Sharma, vice-president, and Prof Tarsem Singh Bhinder, GNDU area secretary, said the PCCTU had been regularly fighting and initiating fruitful dialogue with the state government to facilitate expeditious release of salary grants to colleges during the past one year consistently but it was unfortunate that the Principal Association of Colleges had not even bothered to organise a single meeting with the state government regarding the salary grants so far which was condemnable.

Dr Vinay Sofat, executive council member, and former general secretary, PCCTU, said with consistent efforts of the PCCTU, the government had recently released the salary grant of Rs 90.7 crore which had been credited to college accounts. Therefore, principals should pay proper salaries to teachers amid the present crisis. Dr Sofat also apprised that the PCCTU had also taken up the issue of 1,925 recruited teachers across the state working on a nominal salary of Rs 21,600 for the past three years but sadly the state government has not bothered to release its share of 75 per cent till date to colleges and had adopted a dilly dallying attitude. He warned that if this practice continues, the PCCTU would be forced to hold a strong agitation across the state when the lockdown was lifted. The office-bearers thanked state minister Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa for releasing salary grants to colleges this month to address the woes of the teaching community in this hour of crisis.