JAMMU: Castigating the State Government for paying no heed to the grievances of school, college and polytechnic lecturers engaged on academic arrangements, Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party staged a protest seeking immediate salary enhancement and regularisation of their services. A strong contingent of Panther Party activists along with scores of such lecturers spearheaded by Harsh Dev Singh Chairman JKNPP, Balwant Singh Mankotia State President and Yash Paul Kundal State President Young Panthers assembled at Exhibition Ground, here and raised anti-government slogans.
Citing the exploitation of educated and other unemployed youth of the State as worst form of human rights violation, Singh said that the highly qualified educated unemployed youth in the State were treated like mere expendables. He said that under employment and unemployment problem were homologous which has been a root cause of outrage and embitterment among the youth. He added that it could explode any moment like a catastrophe and cause irreparable damages. Expressing solidarity with the college, school and polytechnic lecturers engaged on contract / academic arrangement basis and who included PhDs, M Phils, double post graduates etc., he regretted that such highly qualified youth were being paid Rs. 7,000 per month in Higher Secondary schools and Polytechnics where as Rs. 8,000 in colleges which had not been revised for the last more than 12 years. He said that they were oppressed like bonded labourers whose honorarium was grossly meagre in proportion to the quantum of work assigned to them.
Seeking a thorough review of the plight of teaching fraternity, Harsh sought intervention of Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti to take serious cognisance of the issue., He reiterated his demand of enhancement in the honorarium of all such the contractual/ academic arrangement lecturers who were being made to work for paltry salary as against around Rs. 45,000 being paid to their regular compeers and sought hike in the emoluments to at least Rs. 20,000 as the existing rates had not been revised since 2004.
Harsh divulged that several lecturers engaged on academic arrangement in hilly and remote areas had shown reluctance to join services in view of negligible emoluments offered to them with the result that the majority of educational institutions including schools, colleges and polytechnics had become defunct and staff deficient. He said that the highly apathetic approach of the government towards the miseries of these lecturers had pushed them towards starvation and other miseries. He maintained that all contractual and academic arrangement lecturers were performing their duties like their regular counterparts and their exploitation was in contravention of the principle of “Equal pay for equal work” enshrined in Constitution of India.
Mankotia and Kundal urged the State Government to concede to their genuine demands at the earliest in the ultimate interests of educational institutions.
Among who spoke on the occasion included Rajesh Padgotra, Naresh Chib, Gagan Partap, Shyam Gorkha, Nirmal Kishore, Ravinder Billouria, Praduman Singh, Udhayveer, Ravinder Jamwal, K.K. Sharma, Rajesh Gondhi, Vinod Kumar, Sangeeta Sambyal, Balvinder Kour, Surinder, Latif Ahmed, Asif Bhat, Naveen Bhat, Anu Raina, Asha Pathania, Yograj, Abhi Manyu Sharma, Gurjeet Singh and Arjun Singh.