Shillong, June 14 (MExN): The North Eastern Hill University Teachers’ Association (NEHUTA) has accused the university’s Vice Chancellor of indulging in “unethical and illegal” manipulation and falsification of decisions of the Executive Council of NEHU. In a General Body Meeting held on June 14, the NEHU Teachers’ Association strongly condemned, what it termed as, the “dubious role” played by the Vice Chancellor, Prof. S K Srivastava, to deprive the employees of NEHU the special Hill Area Special Allowance (HASA) entitled to them by virtue of the Acts and Ordinances of the university. The association in a press release pointed to a recent communication from the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) of June 12 claiming the repeal of HASA and charged the VC of supplying “manipulated information” to the MHRD. While stating that the Vice Chancellor had brought the issue during the 50th emergent meeting of the Executive Council (EC) and also convened a series of emergency Academic Council (AC) meetings in order to have the OE 10 of the NEHU Ordinance repealed under which HASA is admissible, the association argued, “As per the NEHU Acts and Statutes there is no provision to repeal an ordinance.” At least three consecutive emergent AC meetings have been convened during which the members had unanimously resolved to maintain status quo on HASA “every time” as this has been a provision specifically formulated in the Ordinance of the university and was duly ratified by the visitor of the university who happens to be the President of India, the NEHUTA added. It may be noted that HASA was introduced in the university with the view to attract meritorious teachers and staff and retain them in the university with the objective to promote an environment of quality education and research in the region. The association also cited the NAAC peer team during its assessment of the university strongly underlined the necessity of attracting and retaining talent in the university to emerge as a major institute of higher education. In this regard, the NEHUTA argued that the removal of HASA would “hugely hamper” the prospect of NEHU to become a highly competitive educational institute in the region. The VC’s move to strike down a legitimate incentive to the NEHU employees would be “extremely detrimental” to the interest of higher education in the region, for this will adversely affect the dynamic growth of NEHU as a premier institute of education, it added. The NEHUTA further insisted that the incumbent VC is going against the visionary steps of former Vice Chancellor, Prof. B. Pakem, who had, in order to develop NEHU as one of the best universities in the country, created a provision to attract and retain talents in the university in the form of HASA.
