STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Lambasting the state government for turning a deaf ear to the repeated entreaties and representations of school and college lecturers, for redressal of their genuine grievances, Harsh Dev Singh Chairman JKNPP and former Minister on Monday warned a full scale agitation against BJP-PDP coalition for the exploitation of educated and other unemployed youth of the State. He said that with the fast swelling number of educated unemployed youth in the State, the government was exploiting the situation with the highly qualified youth being treated like bonded labourers. He said that under-employment and unemployment problem was analogous to a simmering volcano which could explode any moment and cause irreparable damages. He said that the state government was utilizing the services of thousands of such youth who either remained unpaid for months together or were engaged for a pittance.
Supporting the cause of the college and school lecturers engaged on contract / academic arrangements 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 Rs. 8,000 in colleges which had not been revised for the last more than 10 years.
He said that not only their honourarium was grossly inadequate but also quantum of work assigned to them deserved as second thought and a review. Seeking the indulgence of Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, Singh advocated for increase in the honourarium of the contractual, academic arrangement lecturers who were being made to work for paltry honourarium of Rs. 7000 in Higher Secondary Schools as against around Rs. 45,000 being paid to a regular lecturer and demanded the emoluments to be enhanced to at least Rs. 20,000 as the existing rates had not been revised since 2004.
Seeking further the inclusion of lecturers under special provisions of Act 2010, Singh lambasted the arbitrary exclusion of the aforesaid category of employees from the purview of the aforesaid Act. He regretted that while adhoc, contractual, consolidated and other temporary employees engaged in various state government departments were regularized 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.
