Magadh varsity employees call off strike, resume duty

GAYA: The 27-day-long strike by nearly 600 non-teaching employees of Magadh University (MU) formally ended Friday morning after VC Prof Qamar Ahsan vetted the written agreement between the union leaders and a five- member team of university officials led by pro-VC KN Paswan. The signatories to the agreement included registrar NK Shastri and employees’ union president Akshay Kumar.
All the employees resumed duty.Instead of getting the previous agreement implemented, the Union came out a fresh agreement making a vital climb down on service regularisation issue. According to the VC, he would be placing the agreement before the university Syndicate and once approved it will be implemented.
Those aspiring for promotion will have to clear a written test and the syllabus of the written test will be shortly notified. Compassionate ground appointments too would be made as per government rule, said the VC. The rule does not recognise compassionate ground appointment as a legal right. It was some kind of ‘official charity’ to help those in real distress due to bread earner's death. Compassionate ground appointees are not entitled to any promotion.
Sources say that during negotiations, Union leaders insisted on construction work only through local contractors. The University officials favoured government departments including building construction department and PHED to do the job. As per agreement, works worth less than Rs 1.5 lakh will be locally done through the tender process. Higher value works will be entrusted to government agencies.
The Union went on strike on 17 November for implementation of previous agreements regarding absorption of daily wage and contractual employees and wholesale promotion and compassionate ground appointment.