Ujjain: Guest lecturers demand ‘equal work, equal pay,’ protest intensifies in city after Bhopal

Ujjain: Guest lecturers of various departments of higher education held a general meeting at Tower Square on Wednesday, to protest against oppressive policies of the Government and raised the slogan “equal work, equal pay”, demanding that guest lecturers be made permanent. Staging a demonstration, the lecturers made ‘pakodas’ and held a candle march. A large number of guest lecturers, class 3 and 4 workers union and gazetted officers participated in the protest. The demonstration was also supported by the Aam Aadmi Party and Pensioners association.

Many guest lecturers like Dr Leena Dubey, Dr Anita Tomar, Dr Nitin Tiwari, Dr Sunita Solanki, Dr Narendra Sharma, Vinod Chaurasia, Kamal Patidar, Zakir Khan and Sandeep Sarwan addressed the meeting, and said the government had turned a deaf ear to the protests of guest lecturers in Bhopal. They said that if situation continued, all guest lecturers would boycott teaching and stage fierce protests.

According to Dr Neeta Tomar, no recruitment of assistant professors had been done in the higher education department for the past 26 years. “After assistant professors and professors retire, guest lecturers are hired in their place, appointed by the higher education department on a merit basis, and are paid Rs 580 and Rs 825 as the daily wages. On holidays, guest lecturers remain unpaid,” she said. Tomar demanded to know why the Government opened new colleges in the State every year, when it did not have the capability to appoint professors.