Bangalore lecturers fume over delayed pay

About 800 teachers of various degree colleges in Bangalore are fighting a bitter battle for their salaries. The teachers, working in around 62 aided colleges across the city, alleged discrimination and said that the government disburses monthly salaries of their counterparts in government colleges on time, while they are neglected.

The aided-post teachers waited for more than two months to draw their salaries for October. They got October and November salaries only in December.

Sources at the Bangalore University College Teachers’ Association (BUCTA) told DNA that the delay in disbursing salaries of aided-post teachers had become a regular phenomenon.

BUCTA members said that the teachers had to wait at least till the middle of every month for their salaries.

Moreover, they cannot approach the management of their respective colleges, as they draw salaries from the department of higher education, Karnataka, as part of grant-in-aid system started by the government in various aided colleges in 1975.

However, the teachers in aided colleges who draw their salaries from the management get paid on time.

Some of the well-known aided colleges in Bangalore are Mount Carmel College, Christ University, Vijaya College, Jyoti Nivas College, and National College.

“There is no certainty about when will we get our salary. We are forced to wait till middle of the month. This time we waited till almost the end of December to get October and November salaries,” said a teacher.

A senior official of BUCTA said the disbursement of salaries to aided-post teachers was in the hands of the state government. Teachers had no choice but to accept the government’s behaviour.

“The state government is the nodal agency appointed by the University Grants Commission (UGC) to pay teachers’ salaries. But, the state always had a discriminatory approach towards the aided-post teachers and favoured government teachers by paying the latter on time,” said the BUCTA official.

The UGC provides 80 % of the salary of aided teachers and rest of 20 % is borne by the state government. Most of the teachers said that repeated requests to the government for salaries on time fell on deaf ears.

An official at the Directorate of Collegiate Education (DCE), Karnataka, said that the government was not solely responsible.

“Colleges don’t send the salary bills of teachers in time. These bills need clearance by six regional offices of DCE, only then the salaries are sanctioned,” he explained.

Bangalore has three kinds of colleges — government, aided and private. There are around 65 government-run, 62 aided and 400 private colleges in the city.