The association of the faculty and non-teaching staff of Sinhgad Institutes, on Monday, appealed for a government administrative authority in place of the current Sinhgad Technical Education Society (STES) management.
The staff, led by former faculty of STES’s Kashibai Navale college of engineering Sachin Shinde, demanded a probe into the financial irregularities of the trust during the press conference on Monday.
“The salaries of over 8,000 teaching and non-teaching staff has been due for the past 16 months and every time, a new promise to pay off the dues is made by the authorities, which is eventually broken. The same happened between January 25 and February 24. Despite several negotiations with the staff and the assurance to pay off their dues once they receive the money from their ‘well wishes’, nothing concrete has been done yet. We would also like bring to the administration’s notice that all claims made by the management for the delay, including the delay in receiving a grant from the Social Welfare Department, are all false,” said Shinde.
According to the staff, STES receives almost 60 per cent of its total income from the fees collected from students in the general category and that the grants from the Social Welfare Department only constitute 40 per cent of the total income. “Hence, their argument for the delay in salaries does not stand true. Also, the Social Welfare Department has already released the grants for the academic year June 2016 to March 2017, yet we have not received our salaries from December 2016 to March 2017.All this needs to be reviewed and considered, because time and again, they are misguiding the public with wrong arguments. The students’ fees should actually be sufficient to pay the salaries, unless there is some other case of financial mismanagement,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}According to the staff, STES receives almost 60 per cent of its total income from the fees collected from students in the general category and that the grants from the Social Welfare Department only constitute 40 per cent of the total income. “Hence, their argument for the delay in salaries does not stand true. Also, the Social Welfare Department has already released the grants for the academic year June 2016 to March 2017, yet we have not received our salaries from December 2016 to March 2017.All this needs to be reviewed and considered, because time and again, they are misguiding the public with wrong arguments. The students’ fees should actually be sufficient to pay the salaries, unless there is some other case of financial mismanagement,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}To find a speedy redressal to the issue, the staff has demanded for immediate payment of salaries pending since December 2016 in nationalised banks only and that in future, all salaries should be deposited by the 10th of every month. To expedite the issue and weed out the alleged corruption, they have also asked for an immediate inquiry into all the financial irregularities in STES.
Owing to the non-cooperation movement, the Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) had instituted a three-member committee to look into the nuances of the controversy. After a week of inspection, the STES has been served a notice by the varsity to expedite the payment procedure, failing to do which would lead to stringent actions against them, the university officials had informed.