Fazilka, October 24
Resentment is brewing among guest faculty assistant professors for being given meagre salaries in Punjab. They have been demanding regularisation and hike in salary, at par with part-time assistant professors.
As per the information gathered by The Tribune, there are 962 guest faculty assistant professors, around 300 regular, 250 part-time and two professors deployed on contract-basis at state colleges. As per it, a regular professor gets a salary of Rs 1.5 to Rs 2 lakh per month, a contract-based professor gets Rs 59,000 per month, a part-time assistant professor is paid Rs 53,568 per month and a guest faculty assistant professor gets only Rs 24,000 per month.
Prof Shamsher Singh of Fazilka said guest faculty professors had been running various government colleges virtually in the absence of regular staff but were being meted out with step-motherly treatment.
Notably, not a single regular professor has been posted at a Fazilka government college.
The professors claimed that former Higher Education Minister Tript Rajinder Bajwa had worked out a policy for pay hike and a proposal for the same was forwarded to the Finance Department, which didn’t clear it for the past about five months, resulting in fiscal hardships. — OC
Years on, 962 guest lecturers in Punjab await regular jobs, pay hike
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