The Avinashilingam Education Trust, which runs the Avinashilingam University, has said that there is no move to convert the institution from a public-funded institution to a self-financed one.
In a release, the Trust, represented by its Managing Trustee and Chancellor, Avinashilingam University, T.S.K. Meenakshisundaram, had claimed that the Ministry of Human Resource Development and University Grants Commission officials had assured them that they would not withhold faculty salary. They would not reduce the salary grant as well.
The MHRD and UGC had released the grant for the first four moths and with the money, the University had paid salary for the past three months. And, it would pay without any cut in the coming months as well.
The Trust also said that it would soon finalise the new Memorandum of Association, the Chancellor would vacate his post by December this year when his term ended and was ready to do so even earlier in the interest of the institution.
It also said that a few persons with ulterior motive were demanding the State Government to take over the University and were inciting the staff to this end. And, finally, the Trust appealed to the faculty and students to not get carried away by false propaganda and assured them that it would uphold the values it had held all along.
The faculty have expressed their displeasure over the delay in reopening the institution. In a release, they said that when the non-teaching staff and they met the management representatives on July 3, they were asked to report for duty on July 6. They had agreed to the suggestion in the interest of students but the management without assigning any reason had postponed the reopening of the institution to July 13, which had caused unease among them.
The faculty also said that they would resort to protest if there was any lapse on the part of the MHRD officials or the University management in signing the Memorandum of Association. They had only temporarily given up their protest as the MHRD officials had said that they were looking into the Society’s requests.
Meanwhile, the Coimbatore unit of the Communist Party of India-Marxist had said that the party supported the faculty’s and non-teaching staffs’ protest and condemned any more to convert it into a self-financed institution. The Society members should comply with the rules proposed by the UGC in the interest of students.
