Bihar: Retired university teachers to stage dharna soon

PATNA: In an unprecedented move the retired teachers of universities and colleges in Bihar, many of whom are in their eighties and nineties, will stage a dharna at the Raj Bhavan soon in order to draw the attention of the chancellor towards the inordinate delay in payment of their arrears since April, 2017.
According to the members of the Bihar State Federation of Retired University Teachers, serving teachers have received all their arrears, but the retired ones, most of whom are crippled with various geriatric problems, have been kept waiting.
Nonagenarian Nageshwar Prasad Sharma, a retired physics teacher of Patna University, expressed concern at the dilly-dallying attitude of the state government towards payment of arrears of their revised pension. “We want to get the arrears before it is too late,” he told this newspaper.
Worse is the condition of Magadh University pensioners. “Retired teachers of other universities have been paid 10 months’ arrears, but we have not,” claimed Magadh University Teachers’ Association’s former general secretary Satyadeo Narain Sharma.
State higher education director Rekha Kumari, however, blamed the universities for the delay in disbursement of funds for payment of arrears. She pointed out that the universities had been asked to submit the estimated requirement of funds for payment of arrears to the retired teachers and non-teaching staff, but only Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar Bihar University and Veer Kunwar Singh University had done so.
“The government will release the money as soon as the remaining universities submit a list of their fund requirement,” she added.