NEW DELHI: The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) can hope to have a full-time Director in the near future with the Ministry of Culture upgrading the post to remove the anomaly that has prevented nominee Mridula Mukherjee of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) from taking charge six months after her name was cleared for the job.

Though Prof. Mukherjee's name was cleared in August last, the professor in history at JNU was unable to take charge because the Ministry could not ensure pay protection for her without which the university found itself unable to relieve her as per the rules.

Before the revision, the pay scale of the NMML Director was Rs. 16,400-450-20,900 while Prof. Mukherjee is already on a higher scale. Rules of the Government mandate that the pay of the person concerned be protected when he/she is sent on deputation.

The rules have since been amended and the post has been upgraded to provide pay protection to Prof. Mukherjee. However, since the pay revision of the post requires clearance from the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, NMML will have to remain headless for some more days till the final nod comes.

The issue has been hanging fire for nearly six months. In a letter dated September 13, 2005, the university informed the Ministry that "Prof. Mukherjee is not eligible to be granted deputation as the pay scale of the deputation post is lower than the pay scale held by her in the university. The university will however be in a position to consider granting deputation to her if the Ministry can grant the pay scale she at present holds."

This was the first in a series of letters that went back and forth between the Ministry and the university on the issue, not just at the middle levels of the bureaucracy, but even between the Secretary and the Vice-Chancellor.

Given the position taken by the university, the Ministry on November 30 wrote back stating that steps would be taken to protect Prof. Mukherjee's pay as had been done in the case of the last incumbent O.P. Kejriwal who retired in February 2004.

While the university approved her deputation in principle as a result of the assurance, it maintained its position that Prof. Mukherjee would be relieved once the Ministry approved her pay protection.

And, it stuck to this stance even after Culture Secretary Neena Ranjan wrote to Vice-Chancellor B. B. Bhattacharya on December 12 requesting that Prof. Mukherjee be relieved at the earliest on the basis of the assurance as procedural compliance would take some time.

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