JAMMU, Oct 28: Castigating the state government for dis-regarding the grievances of School, College and Polytechnic lecturers engaged on Academic Arrangements, a strong contingent of Panther party activists along with scores of such lecturers spearheaded by Mr. Harsh Dev Singh Chairman JKNPP, and Mr. Yash Paul Kundal State President Young Panthers staged a massive protest demonstration seeking immediate salary enhancement and regularization of their services at Exhibition Ground in Jammu today.
Urging for the implementation of the doctrine of ‘equal pay for equal work’ in J&K, Mr. Harsh Dev Singh regretted in particular the exploitation of the highly educated youth engaged as contractuals in Schools, Polytechnics and Degree Colleges on nominal wages only for the reason that they were not regularly appointed. He said that engagement of Ph.Ds, M.Phils and double post graduates as lecturers in the said institutions on academic arrangement basis for negligible emoluments of Rs. 7000 per month as against Rs. 45000 for their counterparts in regular establishment, despite the same nature of work, was obnoxious and amounted to worst form of human rights violation. He said that the principle of ‘equal pay for equal work’ had been expounded through a large number of judgements rendered by the Apex Court and constituted a law which needed to be strictly honoured by the state govt. with respect to various govt. engagements.
He said that any employee who was compelled to work at lesser wage did not do so voluntarily but did so to provide food and shelter to his family at the cost of his self respect and dignity. Paying less wages to such employee as compared to a similarly circumstanced, therefore constituted an act of exploitative enslavement emerging out of domineering position of state and hence bad in law. He pointed out that the Supreme Court had once again reiterated in its recent judgement that denying equal pay for equal work to temporary employees was oppressive, suppressive and coercive as it compelled involuntary subjugation and hence un-constitutional.
Seeking Job security to the contractuals and academic arrangement lecturers rendering un-interrupted services in the Education Deptt. for the last several years, Mr. Singh sought framing of a suitable regularization policy and inclusion of such lecturers within the ambit of special regularisation Provisions Act of 2010. Describing the use and throw policy adopted by the govt. with regard to such highly educated youth as most reprehensible and contemptuous, Mr. Singh cautioned the govt. not to play with the sentiments of such under employed youth. He said that Panthers Party shall stand toe to toe and shoulder to shoulder with the aggrieved lecturers in their struggle and shall not relent unless they were assured justice with full dignity and honour.
Mr. Yash Paul Kundal divulged 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. He said that the highly apathetic approach of the govt. towards the miseries of these lecturers had pushed them towards starvation and other miseries. He said that JKNPP shall launch an aggressive campaign for ensuring justice to all un-employed and under employed educated youth.
Prominent among those who spoke on the occasion include Rajesh Padgotra, Naresh Chib, Gagan Pratap Singh, Nirmal Kishore, K.K Sharma, Vinod Kumar, Balwinder, Sangeeta Sambyal, Abhimanyu Sharma, Randeep, Altaf Hussain, Kiran Sharma, Shilpa, Randeep Singh, Asif Mohd, Khajoor Singh, Udhayveer, Narinder Sharma besides others.
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