JAMMU: Chairman, Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) and former Education Minister, Harsh Dev Singh lambasted the State Government for giving raw deal to the issues of contractual lecturers of college and schools who have been seeking the redressal of their long pending demands and genuine grievances for the last several years.
He said that contractual/academic arrangement lecturers in colleges and schools are playing a very significant role in the process of imparting education and in coping up with the acute deficiency of teaching staff in various educational institutes particularly in the remote area schools of the state.
He said that not only their honorarium is grossly inadequate but also quantum of work assigned to them deserved as second thought and a review.
Seeking the indulgence of Chief Minister Mehabooba Mufti, Singh advocated for increase in the honorarium of the contractual, academic arrangement lecturers who are being made to work for paltry honorarium of Rs. 7,000 in Higher Secondary Schools as against Rs. 40,000 being paid to a regular lecturer and demanded the emoluments to be enhanced to atleast Rs. 20,000 as the existing rates had not been revised for the last 13 years since 2003.
He said that several lecturers engaged on academic arrangement in hilly and remote areas had refused to join in view of negligible emoluments offered to them with the result that the majority of such schools had become defunct.
He said that the highly apathetic approach of the government towards the plight of these highly educated youth had not only adversely affected academic activity in the State but it also constituted worst form of exploitation of educated youth besides violation of Human Rights.
He further expressed grave concern over non availability of lectures in majority of the remote area higher secondary schools in view of petty emoluments offered resulting in day to day strikes by students and public in such areas.
He maintained that all contractual and academic arrangement lecturers are performing the same job as regular lecturers.
He said that nature of job of both the categories of lecturers being same, the huge difference in their emoluments was unjustified, unconstitutional, illegal and in contravention of the principle of “Equal pay for equal work” enshrined in Constitution of India.
He further demanded the change of nomenclature of teaching assistants engaged in colleges in conformity with their demand as this did not involve any financial implication.
Seeking further the inclusion of lecturers under special provisions of Act 2010, Singh lambasted the arbitrary exclusion of the said category of employees from the purview of the said Act. He regretted that while adhoc, contractual, consolidated and other temporary employees engaged in various State Government departments were regularised after a period of seven years, the lecturers were arbitrarily ignored despite their gigantic services in the field of education with their emoluments also have been fixed lower than those of class IV employees.
Flaying the Education Department for its dilly dally approach, Harsh regretted that the said department had failed to fulfill its own commitments regarding the aforesaid issues made with the lecturers of schools and colleges. He said that the Education Department was itself responsible for aggravating the crisis by failing to fulfill the urges and aspirations of its employees and by delaying the implementation of assurances given to them from time to time. He said that the issues of said lecturers and all their genuine demands and grievances should be addressed without further loss of time in the ultimate interests of educational institutions. He said that Panthers Party shall stand toe to toe and shoulder to shoulder with the aggrieved lecturers in their crusade for justice.