DUTA Letter to Staff Associations, 20.01.2019

To
President/Secretary/Office Bearers
_______
_______

20.01.2019

Sub: Request to Staff Associations for their views / suggestions on effective  course of action to realise our demands regarding absorption of temporary / ad hoc teachers, issues related to promotion and pension.

Dear colleagues,

The DUTA salutes the teachers for their overwhelming participation in the two day Strike call and for making it a complete success. The Long March of 17 January 2019 was historic in successfully drawing public attention to our demands for an Ordinance/ Bill for continuation of the 200 point Reservation Roster taking the College/University as a unit and a one-time Regulation for the Absorption of ad-hoc and temporary teachers. The DUTA also congratulates teachers for turning up at the dharna at the University on 18 January on issues related to long overdue promotions of thousands of teachers.

Both the Government and the Vice-Chancellor have realized that the teachers of Delhi University are no longer willing to tolerate the non-resolution of their long pending issues. The deployment of police force and barricading both along the route of the march and at the University Gate reveals the cowardliness of the authorities. The DUTA condemns in no uncertain terms the VC’s behavior toward the elected members of statutory bodies.

On the one hand, the Government has gone back on its repeated promises to resolve the issue of the reservation roster, on the other, the push towards contractual jobs by the Government is becoming a reality. This will further cripple public funded higher educational institutions which are already reeling under the impact of continuous and systematic assaults through ill-conceived policies such as the Tripartite MoU and HEFA. The Government/UGC has to failed to rectify after six months the contradiction in the UGC regulation that renders it’s provision of relaxation from API for pending cases of promotion ineffectual. Many retired teachers continue to suffer from loss of livelihood and teachers about to retire are to join their ranks because of the Government directive to challenge the grant of pension.

The DUTA congratulates the elected members of the AC and the EC for putting up a stiff resistance to the attempts to bring in contractual jobs and reemployment for teachers beyond the age of 65. The EC meeting of 18 January 2019 was adjourned without passing any agenda. However, the DUTA has to continue to put pressure on the Vice-Chancellor to ensure that the enabling clauses for teachers such as maternity leave for ad-hoc teachers, however limited, be adopted immediately. The inclusion of Physical Education as a discipline, which was missing from the agenda, must also be ensured. Similarly, revised pensions for retired teachers also await the decision of the EC. The adoption of the UGC Regulations 2018 is also necessary to facilitate the promotions of thousands of teachers.

The DUTA views these assaults on lives and livelihood of teachers as intrinsically linked to the Government policy to commercialise and privatise higher education.  The various policy measures to withdraw public funding and substitute it  by self-financing of educational and research activities are part of that policy.

We request you to collectively deliberate and apply your minds and send your suggestions / views over the ways in which  effective pressure can brought to bear on the Government and political parties as well as on the University administration on the various issues affecting  the lives and livelihoods of all sections of teachers and to expose the destructive potential of the policy of commercialisation and privatisation of education.

The DUTA wishes to remind you to hold meetings of the Staff Associations as soon as possible or definitely by the 28 of January, to enable the Extended Executive meeting of the DUTA to decide on the course of action to be adopted to force the Government and the University to concede to our just demands.

With warm regards,