SILCHAR, Nov 16: “The ongoing agitation launched by the Assam College Teachers’ Association (ACTA) is to put pressure on the State Government to fulfil the long-standing demands of teachers,’’ said ACTA president Naren Sangmai while talking to The Sentinel here today.
The demands, he said, include payment of University Grants Commission (UGC) arrears to teachers since 1996 due to them on account of the revised scale of pay which, till date, has accumulated to the tune of Rs 77 crore. He added that teachers had not yet received their deficit salary arrears of Rs 36 crore from 2001 to 2003. From 2000, DA arrears of Rs 29 crore have also remained unpaid.
The other demand of the Association is to press for implementation of service rules under the Provincialization Act, 2005 under which all the deficit grants-in-aid colleges have been taken over by the government. Even after nearly four years of provincialization, rules in regard to service conduct and leave are yet to be framed.
This, as Sangmai pointed out, has given the principals scope to run the administration according to their ‘‘whims and fancies’’, undermining overall academic interests. Worse, no new post has been sanctioned in any department since 1992 that has stood in the way of quality education, he said, and added that the governing body had to carry on with non-sanctioned posts despite financial crunch. “We demand immediate implementation of service rules, creation of new posts, both teaching and non-teaching, in the State’s colleges,” said the ACTA president.
Sanction of new posts in colleges is the need of the hour in the wake of the introduction of semester system, as pressed upon by the UGC, in different universities of the State, Sangmai said. Self-financing courses have been introduced in colleges which have put fiscal burden on students, he added. The ACTA is of the view that new posts be created for professional courses like computer, bio-technology and information technology.
Sangmai said that the revised scale of pay was to be implemented from 2006 as accepted by the UGC and the Ministry of Human Resource Development. ‘‘Many of the States in the country have introduced the revised scale of pay for which the UGC has agreed to bear 80 per cent of the financial burden. It is quite surprising that in spite of the Central assistance, the Government of Assam has not extended the benefits of the new scale of pay to teachers in the State,” rued the ACTA president.
“Our Association also insists on withdrawal of the controversial official memorandum on NET and SLET introduced in 2000 which are creating complications and responsible for many ills in the arena of higher education,” Sangmai pointed out. ACTA leaders from time to time meet the Chief Minister, Education Minister, top higher officials concerned, including the Director of Higher Education (DHE), and make repeated requests for meeting the legitimate demands of teachers, but to no avail, he said, and added: ‘‘ACTA has no option but to continue the agitation. As part of the movement, the central executive committee members of the association will stage a day-long hunger strike before the office of DHE and will resort to an indefinite boycott of classes from November 27.’’ THE SENTINEL
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