Bantala: After having spent 30 years shaping the careers of a countless number of students and giving his sweat and blood to the development of his college, a lecturer here retired without the benefits of pension or a regular pay package.
Basant Kumar Sahoo, a lecturer in the sports department of Shri Chandrasekhar Junior College here in Angul district, was accorded a warm farewell by his colleagues but there was a feeling of despondency as Sahoo would not be getting even the meagre amount of money that he till now used to take home for a salary.
In a biting criticism of the government’s policy regarding block grant teachers, Sahoo’s colleagues said it was unfair that a person who was associated with the institution ever since it was founded in 1986 never got to relish the benefits of a full pay and a pension, something that only grant-in-aid lecturers were entitled to. Being inducted under the block grant category meant Sahoo would take home only a fraction of what the grant-in-aid lecturers got, despite discharging more or less the same duties.
The college has 43 staff members including clerks and peons. Of them, only two lecturers receive salaries under grant-in-aid (full salary). The rest receive less than what a daily wager earns, college sources said. Two more such lecturers are learnt to be retiring this year.
Around 14 lecturers of the college fall under block grant category while there are five others who were recruited on contractual basis and are yet to be regularised. The lecturers sought regularization of their services besides an increase in their pay. PNN