L E T T E R S    T O    T H E    E D I T O R

Hike guest lecturers’ pay

Unfortunately, no one is paying heed to the approximately 900 guest faculty working in various government colleges in Punjab for more than 10 years. They are being paid a meagre Rs 7,000 per month at the rate of Rs 175 per hour from the Parent Teacher Association Fund. The state government is not paying a single penny for their services.

During its previous tenure, the SAD-BJP government had passed a notification to enhance the guest lecturers’ honorarium to Rs 10,000 per month and ordered that this amount be paid from the government Treasury with an annual increment of 10 per cent. This notification also states that the guest lecturers should be hired for the whole year. But unfortunately, the SAD-BJP government has not implemented the notification passed by the Cabinet in 2012.

Therefore, the faculty members have been boycotting classes with the hope that the government would hear their plea. According to law, there should be equal pay for equal work.

If the government wants to raise the standard of higher education, these guest lecturers must be paid on a par with the part-time lecturers who get approximately ~39,000 per month. These highly educated lecturers are getting a salary less than even a Class IV employee.

Baljeet S Channa, Anandpur Sahib

Address farmers’ woes

The livelihood of small and marginal farmers is being destroyed in the name of reforms in the agriculture sector, i.e. corporate seeds, chemical inputs and corporate procurement instead of public procurement. The result is debt, hunger, suicides and even killing of children by the affected farmers and the men and women who work hard to produce food.

This situation has arisen due to the manifold increase in the costs of inputs such as diesel, fertilisers, pesticides, seeds and labour in the recent years. The other factors include low MSP, climate change, natural calamities and, above all, corruption, whereby the farmer is forced to give bribe.

The Punjab government made an effort to bring the farming community, like-minded politicians and experts on one platform to address their problems and increase productivity at the recent Agricluture Summit.

It would have been more effective if Congress leaders too had participated in the summit. Now time has changed. People have become wiser and vote for leaders who solve problems rather divide and neglect the farm and labour community for their political gains. All political parties should come together to address the problems faced by the farmers and save them as they are the backbone of our country.

Col B S Mathauda (Retd), Rasan Heri (Kharar)

Isolation no solution

The government is mulling on building hostels exclusively for the students of the North-East following the death of Nido, a student from Arunachal Pradesh, in New Delhi. But this is not the solution to check racism. It will further isolate them. They still have to go markets and walk on roads. Separate hostels make them look like caged or domesticated animals who return to the safety of their caves after foraging in a jungle. Instead, the government should make people understand that India is a multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-lingual and multi-religious society and no discrimination should be made on these grounds.

Kushi Negi, via email

Vote-bank politics

In the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections, political parties can be seen setting their agendas. Leaders are busy charting out strategies to make it to Parliament. Their focus is mainly on vote-bank politics and they are eager to divide the electorate on the basis of region, religion, caste and other factors. Patriotism, social well-being and other issues of national interest seem to have taken a backseat. Nobody speaks about iconic leaders like Subhash Chandra Bose, Vipin Chandra Pal, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Sardar Patel. And if anybody does, it is only for vested interests. What a travesty! The NOTA button should be used sensibly to discard candidates. There should be no room in Parliament for the corrupt and greedy.

Tek Chand, Abada Barana (Una)

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