HYDERABAD: Despite an announcement over 18 months ago, the 30 per cent pay revision has not been implemented for contractual non-teaching staff of Osmania University (OU). Though they have held several dharnas for it, the OU administration has not revised the pay; many staff have been receiving the same pay for over two decades now.
The university says contract workers are not eligible for the hike. It says intends to hike their pay and is in the process of fixing the hike and implementing it.
The government had announced a pay hike of 30 per cent for all government employees in March 2021. One of the 1,400 odd contractual non-teaching staff at OU says the order is applicable to them too, but it was never implemented. He said many employees have been getting the same pay for years now. One female employee has been getting a salary of Rs 13,000 for 24 years.
The employees say that Palamuru and Satavahana universities had implemented the measure, and question why OU claims they were not eligible for the same.
Osmania University registrar Prof. P. Laxminarayana said contractual staff were not eligible for the pay hike.
“However, we still want to increase their pay. This is what every university is following. For this, a committee consisting of members from the university’s executive council has been constituted. It has to prepare a report with recommendations on the hike to be given to the contract employees.”
The registrar said the executive council meets once in three months, and the next meeting is in October. Another contractual employee claimed that the executive council had already decided, in its previous meeting, to implement a 20 per cent hike, and the same had been conveyed to the employees. However, the implementation has been delayed and the employees still await word from the varsity on this issue.
