JAC delegation, led by its member- secretary Dr Ram Lal Sharma, Dr J S Saklani and President Dr Kulbhushan Chandel today met Chief Minister and submitted their memorandum of their long-pending demand. They urged the Chief Minister to release 7th UGC pay scales from 2016 which are pending since 2018 at the earliest.
It is for the first time that over 3000 teachers representing the government-run universities and colleges across the state have come on a single platform of the JAC to flag their demand of new pay-scales.
The JAC informed Chief Minister that the UGC has implemented the 7th central pay scales on the recommendation of its Pay Review Committee on 30th January 2018. Subsequently, it was notified by the Ministry of Human Resource Development and Department of higher education, Government of India, New Delhi.
Chief Minister gave them assurance that he would treat their demand sympathetically.
JAC further stated that since the implementation of the UGC pay scales, all the university and colleges teachers in different states are getting the dues and salaries as per the notification of the UGC pay panel.
To make a strong case, JAC pointed out that all the BJP- ruled states have already implemented the new pay scales for their college and university teachers from the due date of 2016 after Ministry of Human Resource Development issued its notification in 2018.
JAC pinpointed that the state government has also notified the new pay scale for other employees to be paid from February 2022 payable from January 2016. They welcome the step as employees will get their due, said the teachers.
But it is only the college and university teachers who have been denied the overdue pay scales, even as four years of notification have been elapsed.
As a result, unrest among the teachers is brewing up because of delay in implementation of the new pay scales for them in the state, JAC warned.
Himachal is also a pioneering state in implementation of the new education policy. In view of this, it is all the more justifiable that college and university teachers get new pay scales and infrastructure for ramping up the quality of higher education that has been targeted in the new education policy in the country, JAC said.
