Retired professors and non-teaching staff of Andhra University are up in arms against the varsity and the State government, as they have not received their pension yet.
In AU, there are about 700 retired professors and around 2,000 former non-teaching staff who are entitled to pension, every month.
As per the norms, they receive their pension by the first week at the most every month. But in this month two weeks have passed and they are yet to get their due.
“Many of us have huge medical bills to pay and receiving the pension on time helps us. And this month the delay has been abnormal,” said former Vice-Chancellor K.V. Ramana.
According to Thimma Reddy, former professor of Anthropology Department, AU, and president of AU Retired Teaching Staff Association, all former teachers of other universities have received their pension.
G. Ravi Kumar, general secretary of non-teaching staff of all universities in the State, said that the pension component of AU is around ₹11 to ₹12 crore per month and is the highest among all universities in the State. “We have taken up the matter with the State government and hope that things will be rectified in a day or two,” he said.
Prof. Thimma Reddy pointed out that ever since paying the salaries and pension from the block grant was disbanded, issues have been cropping up.
AU used to receive a block grant of around ₹267 crore from the State government to care of the salary and pension component.
But the actual salary and pension bill comes to around ₹360 crore. The remaining ₹100 crore is met through internal funding and revenues.
But this system was stopped by the State government a few months ago and the salary and pension was transferred to the Comprehensive Finance Management System (CFMS). Wherein the money is transferred to one head of account in the treasury and from where it is disbursed.
“We have been missing the deadline, ever since AU was linked to the CFMS,” said Mr. Apparao, president of AU Retired Non-Teaching Staff Association.
The move to stop block grant and transfer the salary and pension component to CFMS was taken by the government in December 2018 and the university has nothing to do with it, said Vice-Chancellor P.V.G.D. Prasad Reddy. “The system has been working well so far and this was for the first time that there has been such a delay. It is learnt that due to some technical glitches and number of festive holidays coming in between, the payment has been delayed and hope that things will be on track in a couple of days,” he said.
