Srinagar, Aug 29: The lecturers and teaching assistants working in degree colleges across Kashmir on contractual basis have been without salaries for past six months.
 Around 1500 contractual staffers appointed in March this year are facing inconvenience due to delay in salaries. Besides, the government is yet to arrive at a final decision on already promised pay hike to the appointees.
 A delegation of the contractual appointees who visited Greater Kashmir office said that they have not been paid a single penny since their engagement.
 “This is now the sixth month of our appointment and we have not received a single penny. The situation is turning worse due to prevailing unrest in Kashmir,” said a contractual lecturer, Muhammad Imran.
 They said majority of them were supporting families and the delay in the salaries has been forcing them to borrow money to be able to manage the expenses.
 Since majority of the contractual are posted in far off areas, a huge sum of their salary goes on travelling expenses. “We pay over Rs 100 per day as bus fare for travelling from Srinagar to North Kashmir, which has now increased due to hike in the bus fare.  But, unfortunately the government does not seem too concerned about it. The people at the helm of affairs do not even think how an ordinary contractual appointee could bear such expenses without salary,” said Zuhaib Ahmad, a teaching assistant in a north Kashmir campus who gets Rs 8000 per month as salary.
 The delay has enraged the contractual who see it as a “grave injustice”, more so in view of the upcoming festival of Eid-ul-Fitr.
 “We are sharing maximum workload in the colleges and we give more classes than our permanent counterparts. But government doesn’t bother about us. If permanent staff which is paid triple the amount than us gets salaries on time, why do we have to face the delay?” said Rayeesa Gulzar, a contractual lecturer.
 A contractual lecturer is engaged at Rs 12000 a month while a teaching assistant gets Rs 8000. 
 The state government had promised a hike after the contractual lecturers’ forum approached it.
 “The minister for higher education had promised rather substantial hike to the tune of Rs 7000 for both contractual lecturers, teaching assistants. But so far the promise is yet to materialize into something substantial,” said the forum president, Nazir Ahmad Bhat.
 Minister for higher education Abdul Gani Malik could not be contacted despite repeated attempts.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 29 Aug 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 29 Aug 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:00:00 IST