A prominent teachers’ body at the Visva-Bharati has written to Vice-Chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty, reminding him that promotions are due for a large number of faculty members and asking that he expedite the process.
“On behalf of the faculty members we wish to convey to your office our frustration and disappointment at your indifference towards the process of promotion under CAS [Career Advancement Scheme] and fresh recruitment,” the Visva-Bharati University Faculty Association (VBUFA) wrote in its letter.
Promotions for nearly 150 teachers are said to be pending since 2015, when the then V-C, Prof. Sushanta Dattagupta, was removed from the post and the Centre had directed the university not to proceed with fresh recruitments and promotions until a full-time V-C had been appointed. It was only in November 2018 that Prof. Chakraborty took charge as a regular V-C.
“It is all the more depressing and demotivating that dual promotion has been due for many of the faculty members. Also, with several of them retiring over the last few years, more posts became vacant, effectively hampering the teaching-learning process and affecting research activities of the university,” the VBUFA letter said.
“Several faculty members, it should be mentioned in this context, have retired from their job over the last few years without receiving a fair chance to promote themselves under CAS… We have requested you several times earlier to expedite the process of fresh recruitment and give priority to the processing of applications for promotion under CAS. However, you have been imposing new and strange non-academic conditions for proceeding with CAS,” the letter said.
“In fact, you made a remark during an online meeting on August 28 that you would process some applications only when you are personally satisfied with them. This remark, while it nullifies the function of the university IQAC, reeks of authoritarianism and creates a fear of discrimination among the applicants. We find your demand for a guarantor for the academic grade point of an applicant in the form of a Head of the Department or anybody else is not only impractical and illegal, but also an undignified pressure tactic to put on hold the job at hand,” it said.
