Hyderabad, January 04: Over 700 academic consultants of Osmania University (OU) have come together as the Academic Consultants Association to demand that they be paid they due.
The academic consultants say they shoulder the same burden as any assistant professor employed by OU — who are paid in the region of `40,000-1.5 lakh — but are paid a pittance (`12,000-15,000).
The association represented their case to the university’s vice-chancellor several times but no action has been taken.
Their key demands are salary at par with assistant professors, a change in designation from academic consultant to assistant professor, issue of an appointment order by the registrar, payment of salary for 12 months (presently they are paid only for 11 months), issue of service certificates, and consideration of academic consultants for recruitment to regular posts.
“We have been given several assurances but there has been no concrete action from the vice-chancellor’s office,” said the president of the association, A Parshuramulu.
Some of the academic consultants have up to 20 years of service, but they are given service certificate by the registrar. ‘’Sometimes certificates from head of departments are given but these are not accepted when we go looking for jobs. Moreover the terminology ‘academic consultants’ is such that no one understands the work we actually do,” said Ayodhya Savita, organizing secretary of the association.
—Agencies