Professors write to President over state apathy, to stage stir today

MUMBAI: University and college teachers in the state will stage a ‘jail bharo andolan’ at Azad Maidan on Monday in protest against the alleged government apathy towards them. They claim that despite several court orders that have been passed in their favour over the NET/SET issue, the state government is yet to provide relief to many of them.
The aggrieved teachers, who have also written to President Pranab Mukherjee highlighting the issue, however, said that regular classes would not be affected due to Monday’s agitation.
They claim that the state government has not released the salary of those who were part of the two-month agitation last year. “Our letter has been forwarded to the department of justice directing it to act on the complaint,” said Tapati Mukhopadhyay, general secretary of Maharashtra Federation of University and College Teachers’ Organisation (MFUCTO).
A government resolution passed in June last year stated that the teachers affected due to the mandatory NET/SET criteria between 1991 and 2000 will be regularized from the date of the resolution (June 2013), which is also not acceptable to the teachers as 15-20 years of their service will be completely disregarded.
“Several teachers in batches have approached the court against the June’s resolution. At least seven orders have been passed in favour of the teachers and the government is yet to abide by the orders,” said Mukhopadhyay. The government had filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the HC order.
A senior official from the higher and technical education department said, “Through the resolution, some of the teachers are exempted from NET/SET, some are not. These teachers have not acquired any kind of qualification, neither NET/SET nor a Ph D. So, it will be unfair to those teachers who have cleared it all.”