Andhra Pradesh - Anantapur   

SKU contract workers’ relay fast continues

ANANTAPUR: The relay fast taken up by the contract and hostel workers in Sri Krishnadevaraya University (SKU) here entered the ninth day on Saturday. They are demanding implementation of time-scale for them as is being done by other universities in the State.

There are 140 contract workers in the university and another 70 workers in the university hostels. The contract workers have been working for the last 15 years and the hostel workers for the last 20 years. However, they are being paid from Rs. 1,500 to 2,700 and from Rs. 300 to 1,800 a month respectively.

The wages being paid to the contract and hostel workers would not even meet the minimum wages, the employees’ union leaders said. It amounted to slavery as even the new universities like Yogi Vemana University in Kadapa district were implementing time-scales for the contract workers, they explained.

Member of Legislative Council P. Raghunatha Reddy visited the protest camp on Saturday and expressed his solidarity with the workers and assured him of raising the issue in the Council. He demanded the government to resolve the long-pending problems of the contract workers of the SKU immediately.

He alleged that the government was discriminating the universities in the matter of allocation of funds too. He cited the example of allocation of Rs. 32 crore to the newly set up YVU against Rs. 16 crore to SKU. Several political parties, their frontal organisations and student bodies also expressed their solidarity with the workers.

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