After Chief Minister’s assurance to increase honorarium by up to ₹8,000 per month based on work experience, guest faculties of Government First Grade Colleges have withdrew their protest of the last one and a half months on Saturday.
With this, the government has revised the honorarium of guest faculties twice a week. Earlier, the government had agreed to increase it by up to ₹5000 on December 29, 2023, including providing other benefits like lump sum amount of ₹5 lakh as retirement benefit, health insurance, etc. However, multiple guest faculty associations were not impressed and continued their protest, which began on November 23, 2023. This pushed Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to hold a meeting with Higher Education Minister M. C. Sudhakar and representatives of guest faculties’ associations on Saturday to resolve the deadlock.
The Chief Minister said that the government has considered the demands of the guest faculties sympathetically and decided to increase the remuneration by up to ₹8,000. Therefore, guest faculties who have less than five years of service will get a hike in the range of ₹5,000, ₹6,000, for those with five to 10 years of service, ₹7,000 for those with 10 to 15 years of service, and ₹8,000 for those with more than 15 years of service experience.
He also agreed to the demand of implementing health insurance of ₹5 lakh per annum to guest lecturers and lump sum amount ₹5 lakh will be provided to the serving guest faculties, after 60 years of age. One day paid leave per month to those with more than 15 hours of workload per week and three months paid maternity leave to women guest lecturers will be provided, the Chief Minister said. Along with this, Chief Minister also agreed to simplify the counseling process, including giving weightage based on their experience in recruitment, continuing their service in the same place where the guest lecturer was working in the following year.
“Discussion with the Chief Minister was fruitful and we are satisfied with the his assurances. So, we have withdrawn the protest and will go back to colleges on Monday,” said Hanumanthagowda R .Kalmani, president, Government First Grade Colleges guest Lecturers’ Association.
