The Hindu : Opposition rallies behind contract lecturers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 11, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Opposition rallies behind contract lecturers

HYDERABAD, JAN. 10. Moved by the plight of hundreds of lecturers appointed on a contract basis in Government degree and junior colleges during the last four years, opposition parties including the Congress, the CPI(M), the CPI and the Telangana Rashtriya Samithi on Saturday pledged support to them.

Participating in a State-level meeting on "Contract lecturers future in higher education" organised by the Government College Contract Lecturers' Association, leaders of these parties condemned the State Government, for appointing them on contract basis, extracting work treating them as "bonded labour" and denying them even meagre salaries for months together. Never before lecturers having Ph.D. and qualified in National Eligibility Test and State-level eligibility test were treated so shabbily. They were not even getting minimum wages earned by a daily wage labourer, the leaders said and wondered how the State could hope to achieve the mission of "Swarna Andhra Pradesh" when the most educated section of the society was made to suffer.

G. Muddukrishnama Naidu, spokesperson of the AP Congress Committee, said it was surprising that a Government which resorted to wasteful expenditure on live telecast of its programmes, extravagant publicity, helicopter rides, liberal allotment of air-conditioned cars to officials and appointing a host of consultants, had no money for filling posts in Government colleges. Instead it appointed unemployed youth on a contract basis with consolidated salaries and denied them even that.

E. Radha, member of the working committee of the association, best narrated their trouble. "It is nothing but a form of slavery. We were promised that the contract would last for the entire academic year but it ranged from three months to eight months during the last four years. The monthly salary ranging from Rs.4,000 to Rs. 5,000 was never paid for several months. We were made to sign bond paper enabling them to remove us anytime. There are several instances when the service was terminated a day after signing of the bond paper". She ended her speech appealing to the Government to at least implement food-for-work programme for them, as "we are unable to make both ends meet with meagre salary paid once in a while".

Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy, secretary of the State Council of CPI, traced the problem to the Government's policy of commercialisation of education and health sectors as `dictated' by the World Bank. B. V. Raghavulu, secretary of the CPI(M), highlighted the "double standards" adopted by the Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh