PATNA: Thousands of employees of different universities and colleges in the state on Friday sat on a day-long dharna in front of the state legislature to protest non-fulfilment of their long-pending demands.
They also went on mass casual leave and abstained from their duties on Friday in support of their demands.
Bihar State University and College Employees’ Federation had given a call for the demonstration as all their earlier programmes of agitation failed to attract the attention of the authorities concerned. Federation president Ganga Prasad Jha and general secretary Braj Kishore Singh led the rally.
The 13-point charter of demands of the agitating employees includes implementation of the old pension scheme, timely payment of salaries, payment of arrears of differences in the revised seventh pay scales, enhancement of age of superannuation from 62 to 65 years, regularisation of services of employees appointed on contract, removal of pay anomalies and implementation of the Supreme Court orders regarding their service conditions. The federation leaders pointed out that the employees had been on warpath for the last several months, but the government has turned a deaf ear to their grievances. They threatened to launch a statewide indefinite strike from April 5, if their demands were not conceded by the government till then.
“The functioning of all the institutions of higher education in the state would be completely paralysed and the entire responsibility for the academic loss will fall on the state government,” they said.
‘Education govt’s top priority’: JD(U) spokesperson and ex-MLC Ranbir Nandan has appreciated the Nitish government’s gesture in according top priority to education in the state budget passed by the legislature for the fiscal 2022-23 and hoped that it would give a fillip to the ongoing academic development programmes in the state. Nandan pointed out that the government has paved the way for appointment of at least one lakh teachers and headmasters in schools, opening of degree colleges in 12 subdivisions
