Plea to regularise ad hoc staff at BDU constituent colleges

TNN | Mar 9, 2020, 04.04 AM IST

Trichy: The Association of University Teachers (AUT) observed a fast in Trichy on Sunday demanding regularisation of the services of teaching and non-teaching staff in Bharathidasan University’s 10 constituent colleges.

The AUT also demanded that the Tamil Nadu government and the BDU allow ad hoc teachers to pursue PhD and also to guide research scholars. The association demanded UGC pay scale for these teachers.

Only 31 regular teachers have been recruited since the establishment of these colleges, starting 2006. There are 10 constituent colleges including four recently converted into government colleges.

“UGC regulations mandates that not more than 20% of the sanctioned strength shall be filled with ad hoc teachers. However, all the six constituent colleges don’t have a single regular teacher and are run with only ad hoc teachers,” said N Pasupathy, AUT president.

He added that UGC guidelines fixes Rs 25,000 as monthly consolidated pay for ad hoc teachers, which was subsequently modified to Rs 50,000 in 7th UGC scales of pay.

The university has not adopted either so far while the university has chosen to appoint ‘hourly-basis lecturers’ to exploit them further.

“While they are entitled for UGC pay scale, 363 guest lecturers, 214 hourly-basis teachers and around 100 odd PTA teachers are running the college by getting a maximum salary of Rs 12,000. The salary starts at Rs 5,000,” said AUT general secretary M S Balamurugan.

Also, there was a delay on the part of the university to disburse the salary every month, he said. No service rules had been framed in the last 15 years to cater to the needs of the staff, he added.