Bengal: Left-leaning JUTA slams BJP govt's plan to bring Bill on transfer of varsity staffers

Kolkata: The Left-leaning Jadavpur University Teachers' Association (JUTA) on Tuesday criticised the West Bengal government's plan to bring a Bill in the Assembly to facilitate inter-university transfer of teaching and non-teaching employees across the state, terming it an attack on the self-reliance of the institutions.

Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Monday said a Bill facilitating the inter-university transfer of both teaching and non-teaching employees will be presented in the Assembly during a one-day special sitting on September 10.

"It's a direct attack on the self-reliance of the universities, and job security," the JUTA said in a statement.

JUTA said every university has its own rules and operational procedures and appointments to respective universities are based on these.

"It is against natural justice to force employees to work under a completely new set of conditions," the statement said.

They also wondered whether the new transfer law would be used against those who criticise the government's policies.

"The way the government is trying to centralise the whole system will weaken the autonomy of universities, which is against the basic tenets of the University Grants Commission (UGC)," the JUTA statement said.

Maintaining that the role of the teaching faculty is very important for the excellence of a higher education facility, the teachers' collective asserted that such a transfer model does not exist in any state, at the central level or abroad.

The JUTA demanded that new conditions must not be imposed on the university employees, which would be against the existing employment conditions.