The indefinite protest by guest lecturers of Karnatak University seeking fulfilment of various demands, including pay revision, job security and others, entered the fifth day on Tuesday.
The main grouse of the guest lecturers is that despite a Supreme Court direction on equal pay for equal work and UGC guidelines for fixing ₹50,000 as pay for guest lecturers, the university was not following it.
The protesters alleged that the Vice-Chancellor of Karnatak University K.B. Gudasi had not taken any step to revise the pay of the guest lecturers although he himself had assured taking requisite measures after their previous agitation.
The protesters alleged that instead of acting on his promise, the Vice-Chancellor was acting with vengeance and was trying to remove the guest lecturers by increasing the workload of teachers in the constituent PU college of the university.
The protesters have also been demanding change in nomenclature of the post. Their grouse is that despite serving continuously, they were being disgraced by using the term ‘guest lecturers’.
They also termed the V-C as ‘inefficient’ as during his tenure, he had failed to get grants for the university from the government and instead had hiked the fees indiscriminately putting a heavy burden on the students.
