Odisha govt withholds salary of college principals, clerks for negligence in discharging duty

BHUBANESWAR: The higher education department has withheld salary of principals and head clerks/clerks of 233 non-government aided colleges for negligence in discharging government duty. The college authorities did not furnish the required information sought by the department even after issue of reminders.
Official sources said the department had asked the colleges for furnishing details of teaching and non-teaching staff approved under different grant-in-aid (GIA) orders. Later, assistant director of the department had issued reminders on January 21, April 18 and May 9 to submit the details within the deadline, but in vain.
Department's special secretary Ramakanta Nayak in a letter to defaulting college principals issued on Friday said that non-furnishing of required information even after issue of reminders shows gross negligence in discharging government duty on colleges' part along with failure to carry out instructions of authorities of higher education department.
"Therefore, you are directed not to draw and release the salary/remuneration for the month of May this year of the defaulting principal as well as head clerk/clerk of your college for such negligence till compliance to the letters of assistant director of the department is made and clearance given from this end," said the official letter Nayak.
There are names of defaulting colleges in all 30 districts. Cuttack has topped the list with 24 colleges followed by 23 colleges from Balangir, 18 from Ganjam, 17 from Bargarh, 15 from Balasore, 13 each from Dhenkanal and Jajpur, 12 from Jagatsinghpur, 10 from Puri, eight from Mayurbhanj, seven each from Jharsuguda, Keonjhar, Nayagarh and Sambalpur, six each from Kendrapada, Khurda and Koraput, five each from Angul, Kalahandi and Sundargarh, four from Gajapati, three each from Rayagada and Deogarh, two each from Bhadrak and Nabarangpur and one each from Boudh, Kandhamal, Malkangiri, Nuapada and Sonepur.
Principal of a defaulting college requesting anonymity said he had already submitted the required data through the designated email ID of the department for this work much earlier. "But I do not know why my college’s name has come on the defaulting list. They should have checked this before listing our college name," he added.
Another principal of a degree college said the department had issued a second reminder even after submitting the data earlier. "After I requested the department to check my file, they did not issue us a third reminder and subsequently deleted our college’s name from the defaulting list," she added.