DUTA requests Kejriwal to release grants for 12 govt-funded colleges

The Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) on Monday wrote to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal asking to release the grant-in-aid for 12 Delhi University colleges

The Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) on Monday wrote to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal asking to release the grant-in-aid for 12 Delhi University colleges fully funded by the Delhi government. DUTA also said that these grants should be released on a quarterly basis so that the staff are paid their dues on time.

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“We note with great disappointment that the crisis in the 12 DU colleges that are 100% funded by Delhi government continues even now, causing great distress to the employees of these institutions. It is extremely unfortunate that employees have had to take recourse to the courts to get their salaries released,” DUTA wrote to Kejriwal on Monday.

The Delhi government and the 12 DU colleges have been at loggerheads since March over the delay in disbursal of government grants, leading to salaries of teaching and non-teaching staff pending for months.

“In the month of September, funds were released to six colleges (Acharya Narendra Dev College, Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Sciences, Dr BR Ambedkar College, IGIPESS, Maharaja Agrasen College and Shaheed Rajguru College of Applied Sciences for Women). Funds to other colleges were subsequently released in response to court orders. The grants released were barely enough to pay salaries pending till August,” the teachers’ body noted in its letter, adding that around 2,000 teachers and non-teaching staff have been denied salaries and pension for the past three months or more.

In September, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said that the government had found serious financial irregularities and violation of established norms after the government conducted a special audit to probe allegations of financial irregularities. The allegations were dismissed by the officials at these colleges.

Twelve DU colleges are fully funded by the Delhi government, including Shaheed Rajguru College, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College, Maharaja Agarsen College, Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies.

Delhi government in a statement said, “Six colleges, which had undergone a special audit, have to submit papers regarding surplus funds in their college. Their remaining grant would be released based on that. For the six colleges which were not audited, their funds will be released within the next two weeks.”