Ahead of elections to the Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) executive body, members of the association met officials of the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development on Wednesday to reiterate their various demands. The elections are to be held by the end of the month.
Among issues discussed included a demand to initiate a one-time regulation for the absorption of ad hoc teachers, pension related issues, approval of additional funds and posts for expansion of the university, changes in the pay scale and other issues. Many issues found positive response from the officials, DUTA said in a statement but no concrete resolutions arose.
On the question of absorption of several ad hoc teachers working without assurances of permanent employment, while no assurance was received, the teachers body said that they had been told that all those who are currently working would be called for interviews for new posts. Regarding sanctioning of posts and funds, officials said that additional 1,000 posts would be sanctioned to the university soon.
In a letter, the DUTA said that the existing infrastructure at DU was “woefully inadequate.”
The DUTA had also raised issues related to provident fund that was causing trouble to retired professors. In this regard, officials had written to the UGC asking for clarification, DUTA said.
On a separate matter of issuing notification of a corrected “concordance table” for pensioners, the officials told DUTA that the matter will be soon resolved after receiving approval from the Ministry of Finance.
Apart from this, the teachers body also raised concerns about certain UGC regulation issued in 2018 which it said would have “adverse consequences” for research as well as the career progression of teachers in colleges and universities. The UGC was likely to meet in September to review recommendations based on DUTA’s feedback submitted earlier, it said.
