500 varsity staff members affected by recent State GR

PUNE: Around 500 existing staff members of Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) will have to face consequences of a recent State government resolution (GR).

Through this GR, the State government has asked universities to roll back those employees, whose designations were recently changed by the 6th Pay Commission and recover the raised salaries, which have been given to these employees after promotion.

Besides the 500 employees, there are several retired staff members of the university, who will also meet the same fate, said State university authorities at a meet held on Tuesday.

GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION
''Those employees, whose designations have changed and received a payment hike according to their new designation, their salary slab should be brought back to the 6th Pay Commission as directed from October 7, 2009,'' read the notification.

The state universities include SPPU, Shivaji University in Kolhapur, Kavayitri Bahinabai Chaudhari North Maharashtra University in Jalgaon, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University in Aurangabad, Sant Gadegbaba Amravati University and Gondwana University in Gadchiroli.

The State government had recently approved changes in designations of a few employees in the said universities. However, the government has observed that although their designations have changed, their responsibilities have remained the same but their salary amount has changed according to their designations.

According to this, the universities have to recover the arrears from the said employees.

The University authorities state the work is in progress:
“Since the GR was released on December 17, only 13 days were left to complete the month. Therefore it was impossible to roll back their salaries to the old salary process midway. Hence, all five universities had given their December remunerations according to existing one. As universities have to accumulate the data of staff and their previous salary amount and then provide a list of it to government for approval. It would have taken longer time. It wasn’t feasible to block the payment of so many employees till the government approved for it,” said Prafulla Pawar, Registrar of SPPU.

“However, in the meeting held in Mumbai on Monday, it has been emphasised that the payment of these employees should be immediately reversed according to the published GR. Now, in February, they will receive their previous salary amount and we have started working on it,” added Pawar.