Jammu, Nov 11: It may sound strange, but it is true- a teacher who has trained 25 batches of Polytechnic College is getting a meager emolument of Rs 5700 per month.
 This is not the story of one consolidated lecturer, but over fifty lecturers posted in different polytechnic colleges of the state, who are working on same meager wages between last twenty five to seven years. Majority of these lecturers are women and some of them are working since 1986.
 Giving golden years of their life to the Technical Education Department, working on meager wages, they have taught thousands of professionals, but were themselves facing apathetic attitude of the subsequent governments.
 Sources informed that almost all the employees have become overage, making them ineligible to apply in any other department, but neither they were  being regularized nor their salaries were increased.
 Pertinently, the newly appointed consolidated lecturers posted in over 18 polytechnic colleges, opened recently across the state, were getting more salaries than these, who are several year senior than them.
 Sources further informed that almost all the 18 polytechnic Colleges opened across the state recently are being run by the lecturers appointed on contractual and consolidated basis, even as fate of those serving the department for last many decades is still hanging in balance.   
 They said that as per contract to be signed with the Technical Education Department by them every year, they have to take only two classes in a day, but they are being forced to take five to six periods in a day without any break
 They are also being denied 15 day casual leave and even  salaries  for vacation period.
  “Even the teachers in private schools get pay for summer vacations after one year of their services, but Polytechnic lecturers can not claim salaries for the vacation period”, said a consolidated lecturer on the condition anonymity adding “The department also denied them the salaries for the period of Amarnath land row, in total violation of norms”.
  “In some of the colleges only one contractual lecturer is teaching a particular subject to all the semesters, without taking a break for even half an hour” she added.
 When contacted Deputy Director, Technical Education Department M T Andrabi  said, that  the cases of these teachers were submitted to the government but it was turned down for not meeting the criteria set under the regularization policy .

Lastupdate on : Sun, 11 Nov 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 11 Nov 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 12 Nov 2012 00:00:00 IST