Bowing down to the pressure from State universities and various organisations, the government has decided to “temporarily” freeze its order directing the universities to shoulder their pensions and retirement benefits.
The move of the Finance department comes in the wake of deliberations that Finance Minister K.N. Balagopal had with Higher Education Minister R. Bindu and representatives of various service and pensioners’ organisations recently.
The universities, which currently rely on non-Plan grants provided by the government to foot salary and pension bills, were concerned that the reform would further worsen their financial health.
The department had insisted on instituting funds to disburse pensions and instructed the universities to divert 25% of the upper limit in the salary scales of each employee to the proposed fund. While the government would permit the universities to derive 10% of the amount from its annual grants, the remaining was to be borne by the universities from their own funds.
Low-interest loans
The universities were also permitted to seek low-interest loans from banks or government-controlled financial institutions to meet expenses.
The University Pensioners’ Forum, Kerala, welcomed the decision to put the order on the backburner. Forum president N. Chandramohanakumar and secretary K. Sherafudeen called for preserving the autonomy of the universities and ensuring the pension benefits of teachers and other employees.
Even while it has seemingly withdrawn from its move to place the pension burden upon the universities, the government has remained firm on its stance that the universities will have to meet the additional expenditure incurred through the pension revision implemented last year.
Many of the cash-strapped universities are been unable to sanction pension arrears and hike of several retired employees.
