Salary arrears: No end of wait for NIT-C staff

KOZHIKODE: The more than 200 non-teaching staff members at the National Institute of Technology - Calicut (NIT-C), formerly Regional Engineering College (REC), are now at the mercy of the Union ministry of human resource development for their salary arrears from 2004 to 2012. Their joint action committee said since the Centre had also decided to revert their pay scale to 2004, they would be losing lakhs of rupees. Though the REC became NIT-C, the transformation process is still on, and the appointments and promotions yet to start, said committee chairman N. Sukumaran Nair. 

“The recruitments are not transparent, and nepotism is prevalent. The existing staff are upset over declining the promotions. We expect the immediate intervention of the Centre for restructuring and carrying out the appointments immediately. The salary arrears, amounting to Rs 5 crore, needs to be disbursed with immediate effect," he said. They say 70 per cent of the posts are lying vacant for the past ten years, and their immediate demand is to appoint a joint committee of MHRD and NIT-C nominees to study the issue and reach a one-time settlement. 

A grievance redressal committee formed in 2001 had reported in their favour. In fact, in October last year, minister Prakash Javadekar had replied in positive to look into the matters raised by the committee and wrote back to Mr Nair. But, to their shock, the file got stuck without the sanction of the finance department. However, the committee feels the issue can be settled internally, and they cite the example of NIT Surathkal.