Several Central University Professors’ Salaries Delayed Due to New Payment System
New Delhi: Teaching and non-teaching staff at more than five universities across India have not received their salaries for the previous month, even five days after the month has ended. So many public-funded educational institutions have so far never faced such a delay all at once before.
Among these universities are Visva-Bharati in Bengal, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri National Sanskrit University in Delhi, Nagaland University, Jharkhand University and South Bihar University. As per the regulations, central university teaching and non-teaching staff are meant to be paid their salaries on the last working day of the month.
Rajesh Venugopal, an assistant professor of drama and theatre at Visva-Bharati, said, “Perhaps due to the change in the payment system, it has created some technical issues.” Till September, the government transferred the money to the University Grants Commission, which deposited the required sums into the bank accounts of the central universities from where it would go to the professors’ accounts. However, all central universities have now been asked to open a “treasury single account” (TSA) with the Reserve Bank of India, validated by the UGC, under the finance ministry's latest guidelines.
The universities then must state the monthly funds required through the government-managed digital platform called the Public Finance Management System. After this is cleared, the RBI would transfer salaries to the bank accounts of the teaching and non-teaching staff. An education ministry official reportedly said the new system had been introduced to prevent money lying “idle” in the bank accounts of the UGC and autonomous universities — a problem often encountered with the earlier system.
Venugopal added, “Also, it [salary delay] may be because of the pandemic. But a bigger problem is that we don’t have any finance officer or registrar since 2015 due to internal politics.”
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A professor from the Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri National Sanskrit University said, “Diwali is coming up, this month is filled with all sorts of festivals and weddings. Our plans will go to waste.” Diwali will fall on November 14. But it is not the first time that this has happened at Shastri University. In August, the staff’s salary was delayed by a week this year.
Besides having to sustain their families, some professors are also afraid that they might risk defaulting on their EMIs as they due on the fifth of every month. Another professor at Viswa-Bharati told The Wire, “I have an EMI for the house that I live in, it was the only way I could buy a house. And if I am not paid the salary as soon as possible, it might result in defaulting.”
The Wire tried contacting the accounts officers of the concerned universities but didn't get a response. A response will be added whenever it is received.
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