Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), National Students' Union of India (NSUI) and Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) will tomorrow hold protests against Delhi Government's directive to 12 DU colleges to pay outstanding salaries of teachers from the Students Society Fund (SSF).
"While the Students Society Fund (SSF) corpus, which is entirely constituted by the fees charged from the students, is meant for funding the various student societies at colleges, the unspent amount is to be utilised only for student welfare. Moreover, the guidelines imply that the deficit spending is to be financed exclusively by the Government of Delhi,” DUSU president Akshit Dahiya said at a press conference.
The Delhi University Principals' Association (DUPA) on Sunday said that SSF cannot be used to pay salaries and asked Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to intervene and ensure that the money collected as part of the students' fund is not utilised for purposes other than the activities meant for it.
Mr Dahiya said the DU statutes also require the colleges to be run in consonance with UGC regulations. The accumulated funds to the tune of several crores of rupees would be inadequate to pay the staff of these 12 colleges beyond a period of two to three months, Mr Dahiya added.
"Since the Delhi government will be bound to exploit other sources for future provisions, appropriation of students' money to discharge existing liabilities is unreasonable and patently immoral,” Mr Akshit Dahiya said.
Condemning the Delhi Government's move, the NSUI said that the fund is made from students' college fees which was not utilised due to the COVID pandemic.
The city government on Friday directed 12 Delhi University colleges fully funded by it to pay outstanding salaries to staffers from the Students Society Fund. The government has ordered a special audit of six colleges -- Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College, Maharishi Valmiki BEd College, Keshav Mahavidyalaya, Aditi Mahavidyalaya, Bhagini Nivedita College, and Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies.
The AAP government and 12 colleges fully funded by it have been locked in a tussle over the release of grants, with the latter saying that they have been unable to pay salaries to staffers for nearly three months owing to the non-release of funds.
