PU teachers rally for pay fixation

PATNA: Hundreds of Patna University (PU) teachers staged a massive demonstration in front of the vice-chancellor here on Tuesday in protest against the alleged dilly-dallying tactics adopted by the authorities concerned in fixation of their salaries in the revised pay scale.

The call for demonstration was given by the Patna University Teachers Association. The teachers led by association's acting president S M Ashok and general secretary Randhir Kumar Singh assembled at the PU office and shouted slogans in support of their demand.

Later, a delegation of the agitating teachers met vice-chancellor Shyam Lal and pointed out that a decision to implement the revised UGC pay scales for college and university teachers was taken by the state government in the month of July and a letter to this effect was sent to all the universities by the HRD department on July 29 last.

As per the government decision, the teachers were supposed to get revised salaries from the month of September. Teachers of various categories filled up the prescribed proforma of revised scale and submitted them to the registrar in the month of August. However, the pay fixation has been kept pending for the last two months due to the failure of the university in convening a meeting of the pay fixation committee.

The VC assured the delegation that the meeting of the pay fixation committee would be held on Wednesday and their pay fixation would be finalized immediately. He further assured the delegation that teachers would start getting their revised salaries soon.

Consumer protection: Sri Arvind Mahila College, a constituent unit of Magadh University, organised essay and debate competitions on consumer protection for its students here on Tuesday. A large number of girls participated in these events.

Addressing the students, Hindi litterateur U N Mishra highlighted the importance of consumers protection forum and said that every citizen must be aware of his rights as a consumer. College teachers Usha Jha, Asha Tripathi, Arun Kumar, Premi Kumar and V. Maurya also addressed the students. Bimla Sinha presided over the meet.

Source:toi