Letter to Staff Associations, 7.10.2013

President/ Secretary,
Staff Association/Departmental Councils

_____________________________

Dear Colleagues,

Please find below important information regarding the decisions taken by the DUTA Executive at its recent meetings.

I. The DUTA Executive met on Tuesday, 1 October, 2013 for the election of Office Bearers and Co-option of five members and the formation of the DUTA Executive for the period 2013-2015 was completed.

The following members were elected as Office-bearers: 

     Vice-President: Sandeep
     Secretary: Harish Khanna
     Jt. Secretary: Anita Ghosh
     Treasurer: Bhupinder Chaudhry

The following are the Elected Members of the DUTA Executive:

C.S. Rawat (SVC), Deo Kumar (Rajdhani College), Mani Bhushan (Deshbandhu College), Pradeep Kumar (ZHC –E), Saikat Ghosh (SGTB Khalsa College), Sanjay Kumar Sharma (RLA-M), Seema Das (Hindu College), Surendra Kumar (PGDAV College), Surendra Kumar (Rajdhani College), Vijaya Venkataraman (Dept GRS), Vinay Kumar Singh (Sri Aurobindo College M)

The following 5 members were co-opted into the DUTA Executive:

Angad Tiwari (Sri Aurobindo College E), Anand Kumar (CVS), Pramod C Sharma (KMC), Ramesh Kumar (Shivaji College), Vivek Mohan (DCAC)

II. An Emergent Meeting of the DUTA Executive was held on 3 October 2013 to discuss the pressing matter of over 4000 posts lying vacant and the fallout on the appointment process of recent decisions of the Executive Council, specifically the following:

1. Screening of applicants based on API scores
2. Implementation of 200 point reservation roster from 3.9.2013 and through alphabetical arrangement of departments
3. Adoption of selection committees not in consonance with the UGC Regulations                           

The DUTA Executive decided to demand withdrawal of all screening, specifically in view of the extraordinary situation in which hundreds of posts have to be filled in individual subjects. It demanded that the roster be implemented as per the GOI directives and UGC guidelines of 2006 from 1997 and backlog/shortfall be accordingly filled. It also demanded that selection committees be amended in consonance with the UGC Regulations so that they cannot be legally challenged. The DUTA Executive decided to hold a Protest Dharna on 19 October, outside the Vice Chancellor’s Office, to press for these demands.

The DUTA will write to the Vice Chancellor and his team of officials to meet and start a dialogue on all the above issues so that the appointment process can begin without any delay. But given the fact that appointments are a matter of utmost urgency and the delaying tactics of the VC well known, we appeal to all teachers to participate in the Dharna on 19 October in large numbers.

III. The DUTA Executive also discussed the move by the Delhi Government to provide reservation for students from Delhi and resolved the following:

The Delhi Government has decided to provide 90% reservation to the students from Delhi in 12 Colleges which are 100% funded by the Delhi Government. In the colleges where the Delhi Government is providing 50% grant for their capital work and 5% as the recurring grant, reservation to the extent of 50% will be provided to the students of Delhi.  Delhi Government is sending these recommendations to the University of Delhi and to the Ministry of Home Affairs, Govt. of India for approval. 

The DUTA wants to remind the Delhi Government that University of Delhi is a Central University. These colleges are part of Delhi University and are therefore, governed by the Delhi University Act 1922. The University of Delhi is open to students across the country and its national character needs to be respected. No such reservation is acceptable to DUTA. Further, DUTA shall resist any move of Delhi / Central Government to delink these colleges from Delhi University.

IV. It was further decided to seek feedback from teachers on FYUP.  The first semester of the students admitted under the FYUP is underway and there is widespread discontent about the courses, infrastructure, hurried manner of implementation and repeated changes in decisions in regard to teaching and evaluation. Confusion is also widespread amongst students over the pattern of examination/ evaluation.

In this context, the DUTA requests the feedback of your Staff Association with respect to the following:

a) Academic content and structure of the FYUP
b) Impact on workload
c) Infrastructural concerns
d) Number of  1st semester students who have withdrawn admission

This feed-back will be collated and discussed by the DUTA Executive so that the future course of action can be charted out. We would appreciate if you send us the feedback by Tuesday, 22 October 2013. This feedback with concrete experience of the teachers will help GBM to chalk out course of action in the light of its decision taken on 12.05.2012.

We would also like to inform that the DUTA has launched its new website at https://duta.live. We request you to inform all colleagues about the website and urge all to visit the website and sign up for regular updates and information.

With warm regards,