DU NCWEB guest faculty members claim non-payment since 2019, varsity denies any delay prior to COVID

As per the claims of the guest faculty members, they have not been paid for more than two semesters and consequently, the university may owe a maximum of Rs 1,50,000 per faculty.

The guest faculty members at the University of Delhi‘s Non­-Collegiate Women’s Education Board (NCWEB), appointed on a contractual basis to teach at the board’s centres, have alleged non-payment of dues for more than a year. More than 1,100 guest teachers are a part of the DU’s NCWEB network and most of them claim that they have not received payment since 2019.

Raj Kaithwar, NCWEB guest faculty at Miranda House, DU, told indianexpress.com, “We have not been paid for the entire semester from January-May 2020, October-December 2020 semester (2nd and 3rd-year classes)/ Dec 2020-March 2021 semester (1st-year classes). In September 2019, we had corrected students’ answer sheets and we have not received our payment for the same to date.”

A guest faculty at NCWEB is allowed to take a maximum of 50 lectures per semester for a payment of Rs 1,500 per class. The faculty is allowed to have two lectures per day. As per the norms, the maximum amount that the university needs to pay to a guest faculty is close to Rs 75,000 per semester. As per the claims of the guest faculty members, they have not been paid for more than two semesters and consequently, the university may owe up to Rs 1,50,000 per faculty.

Moreover, a faculty is paid Rs 25 to correct one answer sheet and the teachers are yet to receive the amount for correcting answer sheets in 2019.

Rajeev Gupta, chairman of NCWEB, denied the allegations and said that only last semester’s payment is pending and all the other dues have been cleared.

“There is no financial problem that the university is facing. We have had a meeting with the joint financial officer on Tuesday to expedite the payment. The process is progressing at a slow pace because of frequent lockdowns and curfews across the country owing to the pandemic. Since all the colleges have to submit their respective bills, it can take some time to process all the payments and the COVID-19 crisis is an added factor. We are trying to clear the dues by the end of April 2021,” Gupta told indianexpress.com.

Aarti Rani Prajapati, guest faculty at Bhagini Nivedita College, DU, and president of Guest Teachers’ Association, said only 2-3 colleges have received the due payments over the past three semesters and the rest of the colleges are still waiting for the funds to be redirected.

“We have registered online and offline protest against the financial mismanagement of guest faculty members but it has all been in vain. Most teachers are in dire need of money due to the coronavirus outbreak. Many of us are under serious financial stress because of the university’s lack of empathy. A pandemic is raging and they have not even communicated with us as to when will the payment be made,” she added.

Prajapati demands that the guest faculty should be paid on a monthly basis like the regular faculty of the university. “We are paid on a semester basis, which means that we only get to submit our bills once the semester concludes. However, it is difficult for any professional to sustain like this in the current scenario. There should be parity for both regular and guest faculty, we should also be paid on monthly basis to avoid payment lags,” she added.

There are a total of 26 NCWEB colleges under DU and more than 1700 students are pursuing various undergraduate (UG), postgraduate (PG) courses through the board.

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