TIRUCHY: Professors of aided colleges across the state have been left in a lurch as they are yet to receive their salary for the month of January. Expressing distress, the academicians said they were not able to upload the pay slip on the Integrated Financial and Human Resource Management System (IFHRMS), an online portal through which salary is deposited. MS Bala Murugan, the General Secretary of the Association of University Teachers, said the process of crediting salaries was hindered last month after the portal encountered a technical error on the portal.
"The process to upload the pay slip on IFHRMS usually commences around the 15th of every month. The process is completed by the 26th," he said. "Once the pay slip is uploaded, it will be forwarded to the Regional Joint Director (RJD) of collegiate education for approval. It would then be sent to the secretary of the respective institutions.
Finally, it would reach the treasuries responsible for crediting salaries to the employees' accounts," Murugan said. A professor in Tiruchy pointed out that government employees received salary on time, while aided-college professors only had to put up with the delay. The professor raised doubts over fund allocation. K Pandian, the former president of the association, said it is up to the higher education department to rectify the issue affecting around 6,000 professors across the state.
"If the error was pinned down in January, they should have taken the steps to solve it then itself," Pandian said. Meanwhile, sources said confusion prevailed during the tenure of the previous director of collegiate education over fund allocation for the salary of aided-college professors.
The director of collegiate education, M Eswaramoorthy, denied the allegations on discrepancies in fund allocation. However, acknowledging the delay in salary disbursement, Eswaramoorthy said it would be cleared in a couple of days.