It seems yeh dil maange more. The university and college teachers across the state who had started protesting after the state government announced the implementation of sixth pay commission recommendations last month, are now warpath again. Even after the state government passed a new resolution on Wednesday, spelling out that the teachers would get six pay commission salary as per UGC norms.
The representative body of teachers, Gujarat State Federation of University and College Teachers Association (GSFUCTA), on Thursday warned the government to modify the Wednesday's resolution before November 17.
According to KS Shashtri of GSFUCTA, the GR will harm the educational activities in colleges and universities. For example, the GR says that it will not give any incentive to the teachers who are doing PhD or MPhil. Even if the new appointments are being done on the basis of PhD there are thousands of old lecturers who are yet to do or currently pursuing it.
"The GR is certainly harmful for research activities. Already there is a dearth of PhD scholars and such steps would harm the trend further. We are going to protest against the move from November 17 as we have support from across the state," Shashtri said.
However, a highly placed source in the education department said that now the protest has become political and has nothing to do with the betterment of teachers. He said that the sixth pay commission has been implemented by the government on the lines of fifth pay commission which was implemented 10 years back.
"Now, the protest is baseless and politically motivated. The six points that some people claim have been overlooked have become outdated. As for example, they are demanding to implement UGC's incentive schemes for those who are doing PhD or MPhil, but now there are norms which clearly show that to appoint lecturers PhD is the minimum qualification. Therefore, there is no need to give any incentive," he said.
Other issues such as age limit and state government's rules for teachers, which are being raised, have no basis as dealing with these issues comes under the state government's jurisdiction. Matters such as leave and disciplinary actions are now taken by state governments only; therefore, there should not be any agitation over this.
He further said that the state government's 20% share of the funding for the teachers will directly go to their GPF account while the remaining 80% which is being funded by UGC will be distributed according to the present norms.
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