Hyderabad: TSTCEA demands payment of pending salaries

Hyderabad: The Telangana Schools and Technical College Employees Association (TSTCEA) staged a protest before the Telangana State Council of Higher Education (TSCHE) demanding to take steps for the release of pending salaries.

In a representation submitted to the TSCHE Secretary Srinivas Rao, the protesting private engineering college faculty said that many colleges have not only stopped salaries since March this year, but also terminating the employees in arbitrarily as per the existing rules.

The TSTCEA president A Santhosh Kumar said that the payment of salaries for the teaching and non-teaching staff has been a pending issue for about last four years. At a time when the grievance is yet to be resolved, several colleges have started paying salaries only in the range of 25 to 50 per cent, citing Covid lockdown.Some colleges do pay salaries as per the norms of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) on the condition that their staff has to return to the managements 60 to 80 per cent of the salaries paid to them.

For this, the colleges have been using the ATMs established on campus, as well as collecting advanced cheques drawable on-self. Employees who are refusing to comply with these shabby dealings have been issued termination orders, they pointed out. Demanding for a CBI and Income Tax probe on the illegal practices being adopted by the college managements, they asked the TSCHE to ensure implementation of Section 79, Chapter -XIV of TS Education Act, 1982.

The association representatives said that due to the illegal practices of the colleges and the prevailing Covid-19 situation has left the employees losing on all fronts. Many of the faculty members are going for unskilled manual works under MGNREGA, some are doing hamali works and others have resorted to selling vegetables on the streets, they said.