COIMBATORE: Around 50 guest lecturers, whose appointments are under scanner for irregularity, are facing financial distress after the Bharathiar University stopped providing salary for them for the last two months.
A guest lecturer, who did not wish to be named at university, told TNIE, “A total of six guest lecturers, including me, were hired by Bharathiar University’s department on a monthly consolidated pay of Rs 25,000. After the job notification was released on the university website, the selection process was held in the manner of an interview at the department in June 2023.”
“The university had been consistently paying salaries up until December. But, we have not received salaries for January and February yet. After we enquired about the delay, the university’s senior officials have assured us that the salaries will be credited soon. But, they do not cite any reason. It seems that they did not take any action on this matter,” he alleged while also admitting their daily lives have been thrown out of gear without the monthly pay.
“We continue to work here with the expectation that the university will eventually provide us with the pending salary,” he added.
Condemning this, Association of University Teachers Vice President P Thirunavukkarasu told TNIE that the Vice-Chancellor (VC) committee did not follow the norms in the appointment of guest lecturers in university.
“The committee should have got the approval of the syndicate before the appointment. After that appointment file should be forwarded to the finance committee to get the approval. Without following this, the VC committee appointed the guest lecturers as per wish. Higher education secretary A Karthik, who is also convenor of the Bharathiar University VC committee, has stopped providing salaries citing this violation of norms after reviewing these appointments,” alleged Thirunavukkarasu.
He alleged that due to mistakes of the VC committee, as many as 58 guest lecturers were affected financially. He wanted the higher education minister to intervene to resolve the issue faced by the guest lecturers.
Official sources have confirmed that officers have appointed guest lecturers to address the shortage of faculty members at the university and noted that no appointments have been made since 2016.
When asked about it, Bharathiar University registrar (in charge) Rupa Gunasekaran told TNIE, “We have formed a committee to redress the issues of the guest lectures. This issue will be rectified within two weeks.”
Repeated attempts to reach higher education secretary A Karthik went in vain.