Contract Asst Profs unrelenting, continue protest with broom, pen

Hyderabad: The protest by contract assistant professors continued on Sunday, with demonstrators holding a broom in one hand and a pen in the other. They swept the Osmania University campus, demanding that the State government regularize their services.

The protest has been going on for two weeks, where contract assistant professors from 12 universities of Telangana including Osmania University- Hyderabad, Telangana University- Nizamabad, Mahatma Gandhi University- Nalgonda, Kakatiya University- Warangal, SPR Telugu University- Hyderabad, Satavahana University- Karimnagar; JNTUH –Hyderabad, Palamuru University- Mahbubnagar, RGUKT- Basara, BRAOU- Hyderabad, JNFAU- Hyderabad and VNCI Women’s University- Hyderabad have been staging dharna.

The protesters pointed out that they have been demanding the State government to extend job security, besides providing basic, DA and HRA with an annual increment of three per cent but despite submitting several memorandums to the concern officials no concrete measure were taken. So to awaken the officials, professors have been observing an indefinite strike for the last two weeks. At part of the protest, few lecturers of Osmania University caught broom in one hand and pen in another, and swept the university campus.

Upender Rao, one of protesters, said, “Despite being qualified for regular posts as per the UGC norms, we have not got any recognition. Whereas in our country, State governments like Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Manipur, Gujarat, and Rajasthan have regularised the contract teachers working in the universities but it was not done here.”

“Our main demands include immediate withdrawal of GO 21, regularisation of all the contractual teaching faculty, dearness allowance (DA) and house rent allowance (HRA), salary as per the seventh pay commission and job security and we will continue our protest till we get justice,” he added.