Hyderabad: Muffakham Jah College staff to hold protest ove salary cuts

Hyderabad: All is not well between a section of the faculty and management of the Muffakham Jah College of Engineering and Technology (MJCET), as the former is miffed with the educational institution over alleged irregular payment of salaries from about a year. A few of the teaching staff have informed Siasat.com that they are planning to hold a protest in the college on September 1 if things are not sorted out soon.

While the college administration has denied any wrongdoing and has maintained that salaries are paid on time, faculty members who Siasat.com spoke with (and whose names are being withheld for their safety) allege that the administration has not been paying salaries for nearly a year since the COVID-19 pandemic began last year. If there are issues due to COVID-19, we understand, but we wanted some kind of assurance in writing that salaries will be paid fully eventually with our dues,” said one of the teachers from MJCET.

Zafar Javed, chairman of Sultan-ul-Uloom Educational Society (which runs MJCET) told Siasat.com that the reason for hiccups in salary dispersion was owing to the lack of funds from the state government for the year 2019-20 and 2020-21, with regard to scholarships. However, an RTI report from the Telangana Minorities commission showed that it had disbursed over Rs. 15 crore to the college for 2019-20 at least (a copy of which is with Siasat.com).

When asked about the funds which came in for the year 2019-2020, Zafar Javed said, “We are yet to get money from the state government and even for the year 2021. Rs. 14 crores haven’t come through. The allegations of defaulting on salaries are completely wrong and baseless. All salaries are coming through as they should which includes the provident fund and health insurance.”

“There are over 100 of us who are ready to protest. In total MJCET has about 180 teaching staff and the rest are non-teaching staff. As of now we are getting 80% of our salaries. Earlier it was slashed more than that. We want to know if they are going to pay the amount that was slashed,” the MJCET teaching staff member said. When asked about the salary cuts, Zafar Javed said that owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, students couldn’t pay fees either which resulted in delays in salaries.

Javed maintained that all the faculty members were being paid properly currently. In June, a few faculty members had written to various government departments, including the chief minister’s office and the Osmania University vice-chancellor, over the issue. The letter raised a number of issues, including the salary cuts at the Muffakham Jah College of Engineering and Technology. However, the management has denied any wrongdoing on its part.