A committee has been formed in Madurai Kamaraj University to streamline the engagement of more than 600 casual labourers working in various administrative sections.
The committee, formed by Higher Education Secretary Sunil Paliwal, who is also the Convenor of the Syndicate Committee of the MKU, will submit its recommendations within a month.
The seven-member committee will be headed by G. Arumugam, Registrar (in-charge) and will have other senior officials, including K. Muthuchelian, Controller of Examinations (in-charge), K. Ravichandran, Special Officer, and G.S. Selvam, Dean of College Development Council (in-charge), as members.
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According to university sources, 331 casual labourers are working under consolidated pay casual labourers (CPCLR) category and another 293 as casual labourers (CLR).
Concerns had been raised for long regarding the necessity for engaging such a large number of workers on a daily wage basis.
“Successive persons who were at the helm of affairs had made many of these appointments, which were often unwarranted and done without strict adherence to procedures,” said a senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
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Mr. Arumugam, however, said: “We will study the requirements of each section in the university since in many cases we have found imbalances in allocation of work. There will be a reshuffle to address this issue.”
He added that the priority would be not to lay off excess workers since some of them had worked for more than 10 years but to accommodate them in other sections.
Officials said that it was also decided to form a Hostel Reforms Committee and Canteen Reforms Committee to address long-pending issues.
“Presently, the cooking of food for hostel students is done at one hostel and distributed to the seven other hostels. We are planning to decentralise this. Similarly, stringent measures have been planned to fix issues at the canteen,” Mr. Arumugam said.
Mr. Paliwal has also consented for temporary delegation of certain powers to Registrar (in-charge) to avoid administrative delays.
They include the power to nominate university representatives to various committees functioning in affiliated colleges like Governing Body, Board of Studies and Finance Committee.
Similarly, the Registrar and the Director (Research and Projects) have been accorded permission to approve files pertaining to research section at the university level.