NEW DELHI: Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has, for the first time, not paid its teachers the monthly salary. This was revealed on Monday as the teachers released a report on the five-year term of vice-chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar.
Kumar’s term was to end on January 26, but he has been given an extension by the Union education ministry till the appointment of his successor. Teachers alleged that after the extension, Kumar had changed the rules for appointing members of the search committee for the new VC to delay the process.
Bikramaditya Kumar Choudhary, a teacher at Centre for the Study of Regional Development and former JNU Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) secretary, said, “As we recount on the achievements of the VC, I would like to inform that for the first time, teachers have not been paid for the month. It is a rule of the government that they have to be paid on the last day of the same month, leaving the month of March.”
Registrar Pramod Kumar did not respond to calls and messages. But according to an official, the university is still waiting for funds from University Grants Commission. But teachers claimed a lot of money had been used from the corpus fund, and given to different organisations and for holding events.
They alleged that the autonomy of the university had been destroyed in these five years. “It’s the VC, and not the university, that has autonomy in JNU today. Some of the decisions have been taken arbitrarily by the VC to deliberately weaken the existing system of academic governance,” alleged Moushumi Basu, JNUTA secretary.
Over 150 cases have been filed by faculty, students, non-teaching staff against the VC and his administration in 2016-21, Basu added, claiming “in majority of these, JNU has been found to have committed illegality.”
Kumar did not respond to the allegations.
Teachers also presented data on how the outsourcing of the entrance examination had been costly. “In 2019-20, according to information provided by National Testing Agency (NTA) in response to an RTI, the shortfall in revenue was over Rs 2.57 crore. This makes it clear that the shift to an online mode of examination conducted by NTA has resulted in a significantly higher net expenditure,” said Basu.
Teachers also alleged that Kumar had violated constitutional provisions like reservation in recruitment and promotions.