Release of grants: Teachers from 12 Delhi govt-run colleges go on hunger strike
NEW DELHI: Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA) on Saturday went on a 12-hour hunger strike in support of their colleagues in 12 Delhi University colleges that are fully funded by the Delhi Government, who have said that they have not received their grant money. In a statement, the DUTA condemned Delhi Government's withholding of grantin-aid to these 12 colleges. "This has resulted in serious financial hardships for employees in these times of the pandemic. The problem is not new and DUTA has been highlighting it in the numerous representations submitted to the Delhi Government in the past two years. However, the crisis has become very acute in the last several months with the Delhi Govt taking an obdurate position in its decision to stop grants," said a statement by DUTA.
The Delhi government had been at the loggerheads with the DU administration over the issue of governing bodies (GB), which are yet to be formed in its partially and fully-funded colleges. The government had earlier said that it will not release funds to colleges without governing bodies.
The Delhi government Education Minister Manish Sisodia, when the issue was raised in April, had said that they had paid pending salaries for March and assured that there would be no delay in April. "Though the Delhi Government recently released some grant but in most cases, these grants were found to be grossly inadequate. In these difficult times of the pandemic, non-disbursal of salaries has led to disruption in the fulfillment of basic needs of food and medicine for employees," DUTA claimed.
What started as a tussle between the Delhi University and the Delhi Government on the matter of the constitution of governing bodies in these colleges has resulted in a bitter fallout with the Delhi Government withholding the grant-in-aid so necessary for the disbursal of salaries to the teaching as well as the non-teaching employees of these colleges.
The 12 colleges fully-funded by the Delhi government are the Indira Gandhi Institute of Physical Education and Sports Science, Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies, Shaheed Rajguru College, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College, Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar College, Acharya Narendra Dev College, Bhagini Nivedita College, Keshav Maha Vidyalaya, Maharaja Agrasen College, Aditi Mahavidyalaya, Maharishi Balmiki College of Education and Bhaskara Charya College of Applied Science. Over 2,700 teaching and non-teaching staff are employed at these colleges.