Patna University retired teachers allege raw deal

Addressing the Patna University (PU) convocation of 2004 in the presence of the then President A P J Abdul Kalam, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar had announced that PU would be provided facilities on a par with Central universities even if it was not upgraded as a Central university. Today, PU is being deprived even of the facilities given to other universities in the state.

The state cabinet recently sanctioned Rs 200 crore for payment of arrears to the teachers of all the universities in the state save PU. University teachers said they fail to understand the rationale behind ignoring the genuine claim of PU teachers.

A delegation of PU Retired Teachers' Association led by its president Bakshi Vidyanand Sinha and general secretary S K Ganguli met HRD minister Hari Narain Singh on Thursday to draw his attention towards this discriminatory attitude of the government. Surprisingly, even the minister was not aware of this fact.

When the minister wanted to ascertain the fact from the HRD secretary, he was informed that PU's claim for government grants was not entertained because of late submission of the proposal from the university.

PU's claim for arrears payment had been ignored even in December 2008 when the government had reportedly sanctioned the same amount for payment to the teachers of other universities.

It may be mentioned here that the Patna High Court has directed the university as well as the state government to ensure timely payment of arrears to the teachers, especially the retired ones.

The minister assured the delegation that a tripartite meeting of PU officials, HRD officials and association's representatives would be held shortly to sort out the matter.

Meanwhile, Federation of University Teachers' Associations of Bihar (FUTAB) secretary Arun Kumar has criticised the alleged discriminatory attitude of the Magadh University authorities towards the teachers of fourth-phase constituent colleges. He said though the state government had released less grants to the university for payment of salaries to the teachers, the teachers of fourth phase have been paid only 75% of their normal salary against 94% paid to other teachers. He demanded a fair deal to all categories of teachers of the university. link