Dimapur, April 26 (MExN): The Khelhoshe Polytechnic Atoizu ‘fixed pay Lecturers, Assistant Lecturers and Demonstrators’ have now decided to call-off protests to abstain from conducting practical examinations due to non-payment of 6 months’ salary from October 2016 till date. The faculty members stated this in a press release today. Even though no positive response from the Government has come till date, they have taken this decision “keeping in mind the career of the students at stake.” “The decision to abstain from performing duty was made because even though many requests had been made to the government regarding the non-payment of salaries both verbally and in written but there was no positive response due to which the members were compelled to serve an ultimatum dated March 30, 2017, to not declare the Progressive Assessment on April 12, 2017,” informed the press release. However, no satisfactory response came from the authorities, so the faculty members decided to go ahead with the declaration of the Progressive Assessment “keeping in mind the career of the students.” Another ultimatum was served on April 13 stating that “the faculties will refrain from performing any upcoming examination duty until the Department disburse the pending salaries” on or before April 24. The aggrieved faculty members also met the Director of Technical Education to “apprise him of their grievances” on April 13, following which the Director “gave a verbal assurance that the salaries will be paid regularly from the month of March 2017,” the press note informed, adding that the assurance was not fulfilled. “Serving without pay for such long months in out-post location is really miserable, the faculties were really taken aback by the response of some government officials, instead of sympathizing their helpless case in times of desperation, the response was even more discouraging for the faculties to carry out their duties and responsibilities without any payment of salary in such a remote location,” the aggrieved faculty members noted, adding that they had no option but to “stick with their ultimatum until the demand is fulfilled.” But now that they have called off the stir, the members requested the authority to “feel the genuineness of their case and continue to take up the matter with utmost urgency with professional ethics.”
