Chennai : Termination of jobs of 135 casual workers of Madurai Kamaraj University (MKU), one week after the new Vice Chancellor assumed office, has led to misery for the affected and their families.
This is issue is slowly turning into a major human rights issue with several organisations and academics coming out in support of the workers who were removed without any prior notice.
New Vice Chancellor, J. Kumar had terminated the services of these casual labour (CLR) and consolidated pay casual labour (CPCLR) staff without giving any prior notice.
Many of these CLR and CPCLR staff were working in the university for the past ten years and academics and human rights activists have said that this has literally put them out on the streets.
Around 400 CLRs and CPCLRs are working in the university as gardeners, drivers, certificate preparing staff, etc, in the university. While casual labourers were working at Rs 500 per day for 22 days a month, CPCLRs were working at a consolidated salary of Rs 8,000 to Rs 20,000 per month.
“Me and my family will be literally on the streets. No idea how to overcome this. The VC acted in an inhuman manner… we were hundred per cent sincere to our jobs and did with the best of our abilities,” Thiagarajan Kumaran, who has been working at the University for the past eleven years as casual labour, told IANS.
Noted human rights activist and social worker Munisamy M.R., who is heading the “Save Labourers” movement told IANS: “This is an unfortunate incident wherein 135 casual labourers are driven to the streets one fine morning. The role played by the Vice Chancellor of the University is highly deplorable and we request him to take back these employees or to face a series of agitations.”
“Save MKU coalition” President A. Srinivasan told IANS: “There were around 3,000 objections raised during the MKU audit and misappropriation of funds to the tune of Rs 500 crore is detected. This money would have been swindled by those who were handling it and firing poor labourers for this is totally uncalled for. We will strongly protest against this move of the Vice Chancellor.”
He said that the Principal secretaries of former Higher Education ministers were involved in the scam and firing casual employees was not a solution to this problem.
The association has already petitioned Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, M.K. Stalin to intervene in the matter.
On the other hand, a varsity official, who did not want to be named, said: ” Most of these employees were not able to even operate even computers and they were doing the work for certificate preparation. We removed people on the basis of ‘last come first go’ policy.”
However, Save MKU coalition leaders said that this was not true and several employees who had completed ten years of service were also removed unilaterally.
MKU Vice Chancellor J. Kumar told IANS: “We are passing through a severe financial crunch and there are many audit objections. We have to clear these audit objections so that the state government releases our budget.”
–IANS