CHANDIGARH, May 31: A Scheme of advance payment of grant-in-aid to private colleges of the city has been introduced by the UT Education Department. The 95 per cent grant towards payment of staff salaries which is disbursed to colleges by the Education Department will now be released at the commencement of every quarter.This follows the decision of the UT Administration to follow the grant rules as mentioned in the Punjab Education Code. It is expected to mitigate the problem of late disbursement of salary to private college employees resulting from delays in issuance of grant by the Administration.
A sum of Rs 1.34 crore has already been disbursed to the private colleges. The maximum grant of Rs 44 lakh is for DAV College, Sector 10, followed by a grant of Rs 32 lakh for MCM DAV College for Women, Sector 36. Though this particular grant will cater to the previous quarter, and is not exactly an advance grant, advance payment of grants is likely to commence from the next quarter.
City college teachers have often resorted to protests and agitation on account of delay in payment of their salaries. The move is expected to fulfil a long standing demand of the Punjab and Chandigarh College Teachers' Union. Meanwhile, the president of the PCCTU unit of GGDSD College, Jagwant Singh, has welcomed the decision of the Chandigarh Administration to release the quarterly salary grant in advance. He also appealed to the Administration to integrate the "payment of salary through bank scheme" which was introduced in 1990 and which could not be implemented due to lack of advance grants. The Administration has specified that pay and allowances of teaching and non-teaching staff is to be paid from this grant, apart from the contributions towards the provident fund of the eligible employees.
The order of the Education Department specifies that the teaching staff of the college shall be paid salaries according to the revised UGC scales approved by the government. The Department has also specified that the staff should be given salaries by cheque and no person shall be compelled to pay to refund any part of the salary to the college.
The grant shall be available only to colleges in existence in UT on September 1, 1978 and affiliated to Punjab University. The grant is for posts in existence in the college on November 1, 1979 and the incumbents are not paid salary out of the students' fund.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
