Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 4: Castigating the State Government for its criminal apathy towards School, College and Polytechnic lecturers engaged on Academic arrangements, the Panther Party activists along with scores of such lecturers spearheaded by Rajesh Padgotra, Provincial president NPP and Gagan Pratap Singh general secretary Young Panthers and others, staged a protest demonstration seeking immediate salary enhancement and regularization of their services at Exhibition Ground here today.
Describing the exploitation of educated youth of the State as worst form of human rights violation, Rajesh Padgotra said that the highly qualified educated under-employed youth in the State were treated like mere expendables. He said that the brewing anger of the youth could explode any moment like a catastrophe and cause irreparable damages.
Expressing solidarity with the these lecturers engaged on contract / academic arrangement basis and who included PhDs, M Phils, double post graduates etc., he regretted that such highly qualified youth were being paid Rs 7,000 per month in Higher Secondary schools and Polytechnics where as Rs 8,000 in colleges which had not been revised for the last more than 12 years. He said that they were oppressed like bonded labourers whose honorarium was grossly meagre in proportion to the quantum of work assigned to them. He sought hike in the emoluments to at least Rs 20,000 as the existing rates had not been revised since 2004.
Gagan Pratap Singh and Shyam Gorkha pointed out that several lecturers engaged on academic arrangement in hilly and remote areas had shown reluctance to join services in view of negligible emoluments offered to them with the result that the majority of educational institutions including Schools, Colleges and Polytechnics had become defunct and staff deficient. They said that the highly apathetic approach of the Govt towards the miseries of these lecturers had pushed them towards starvation. They exhorted the Govt to frame a definite policy and regularize the services of these lecturers.
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