[ Bengia Ajum ]
ITANAGAR, 11 Jul: It is alleged that most of the government as well as private colleges and universities of Arunachal Pradesh are not paying salaries to guest faculties as per the University Grants Commission (UGC) guideline.
The UGC has notified that a guest faculty should be paid Rs 50,000 per month, with Rs 1,500 per lecture. However, this guideline is not being followed either by government or private colleges of the state.
In the government-run colleges, at present the guest faculties are paid Rs 34,500 per month. Till last year, they were paid Rs 25,000 per month. The education department had proposed to pay Rs 50,000 per month as per the UGC norms, but the finance department restricted it to Rs 34,500 per month.
“We are still trying to convince the finance department to pay them as per the UGC norms. The process is on,” said an official of the education department.
The situation is worse in the private colleges and universities, where not only the guest faculties but even the regular faculties are being paid meagre salaries. Also, most of them do not hire guest faculties. But even the regular faculties working under them are not paid as per the UGC norms.
In some of the private universities, regular faculties with PhD degrees are paid a salary of Rs 25,000 per month, and those without it but with NET qualifications are paid Rs 19,000. But it also depends on the person’s capability to bargain with the college/university authorities.
“There is no transparency in the salary policy. Sometimes people working in the same department with similar qualifications and experience also are not paid equally. It depends on the individual’s capacity to bargain with the authorities,” said a lady faculty of a private university.
Further, there are several disparities in the salary structure.
“The faculties coming from outside are paid more, compared to the locals. In some colleges and universities, the freshers get a starting salary of Rs 15,000,” she added.
Making it more complicated for the employees working in private colleges and universities is the lack of proper leave of absence policies.
“We are literally at the mercy of the management. They can fire us anytime if we remain absent even for a day. Lack of a proper leave of absence policy gives them the upper hand to manipulate the employees,” she said.
She further informed that lady faculties in particular face a lot of trouble.
