Seven colleges come to standstill as staff go on strike

The affected colleges included DAV College,Sector 10; MCM DAV College,Sector 36; GGDSD College,Sector 32; Guru Gobind Singh College for Women,Sector 26; Sri Guru Gobind Singh College,Sector 26; Dev Samaj College for Women,Sector 45 and Dev Samaj College of Education,Sector 36.

The rally was called by Punjab and Chandigarh College Teachers Union (PCCTU) Joint Action Committee (JAC) consisting of non-government colleges Management Federation Punjab and Chandigarh,Federation of Associations of College Principals,Punjab and Chandigarh.

Addressing the rally,Jagwant Singh,General Secretary of the Joint Action Committee (JAC) blamed the government for the ongoing agitation.

He said that the very fact that all the stakeholders including managements,principals,teachers and non-teaching staff are together in these protests shows that the issues involved are much larger than the demands of employees. The issues are crucial for the health of entire college education sector. Failure to address these issues is playing with the future of next generations of Punjab.

Ghanshyam Dev,President of Chandigarh District Council of PCCTU criticised the UT Administration for delay in issuing the orders for pay scales of non-teaching employees of aided colleges of Chandigarh despite the concurrence received from Ministry of Human Resource Development. Rupinder Chatha of MCM DAV College demanded that Akali Dal,Government must implement its own decision taken on the issue of pension and gratuity on December 12,2001 under the Act of 1999.

The other main demands are implementation of revised pay scales and allowances for non-teaching employees from January 2006,lifting of ban on recruitment release of arrears revised pay scales.