JU teachers’ association warns of protest on salary, pension delay fears; govt refutes

Kolkata: The Jadavpur University Teachers’ Association (JUTA) on Monday threatened to launch a protest, alleging that the West Bengal Higher Education Department is likely to withhold two months’ pension and one month’s salary of the institute's employees. A senior official of the department, however, dismissed the apprehension, saying there was "no question" of withholding pensions, retirement benefits or delaying salaries.

In a statement, JUTA general secretary Partha Pratim Roy said the association had learnt that pensions for October and November and other retirement dues had been held back. "At the same time, the salary for November has also been withheld by the department.

It appears the university’s corpus fund is on the verge of being exhausted due to payment of salaries, pensions and retirement benefits," Roy alleged in an open letter to teachers. "You may already be aware that the Higher Education Department has issued an order taking away the authority of the university to approve pensions and directing that this responsibility be handed over to the Directorate of Pension, Provident Fund & Group Insurance (DPPG).

Many of us know that the way universities maintain personal files is in no way comparable to how government offices maintain them. As a result, it is only natural that the transfer of these files may lead to delays in pension processing," he said.

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Claiming that teachers are unsure whether they will receive their pensions next month, JUTA alleged that the introduction of HRMS—an integrated software system for HR functions—was also aimed at taking over salary approval from the university.

Roy said the teachers' body had repeatedly submitted deputations to the university and placed demands regarding these issues. "Although the Executive Council (EC) discusses various matters, it failed to discuss this issue. Meanwhile, those in the EC who claim to be government representatives and interfere in various day-to-day affairs of the university are supporting the department on this matter," he said.

A senior higher education official said there was no possibility of the department withholding pension and other retirement benefits of JU teaching and non-teaching staff and delaying salary. "Due to the processing job for shifting certain HR-related work from the state university domain to a centralised software system, some work had been pushed beyond schedule, but there is no way the due legitimate economic benefits of teaching and non-teaching staff will be taken off," the government official said.