MKU pays some workers’ salary, pensions, and withholds compensation from non-teaching personnel
On Saturday, after a three-month wait, certain employees and retirees of Madurai Kamaraj University (MKU) received their salary and pensions for the previous two months. Educationists, however, took issue with the university’s choice to suspend the payment of salary and pensions to other employees and retirees.
Due to budgetary limitations, MKU employees and retirees have not received pay since December 2023. In this regard, ~30.26 crore was issued by Principal Secretary to the Higher Education Department A Karthik, subject to a few conditions, including raising pensioner and non-teaching staff wages to match the ministerial pay scale of the Tamil Nadu government. The relevant workers and pensioners received show-cause letters from the university administration based on these riders.
On March 1, fifty non-teaching staff petitioned the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, obtaining an interim injunction against the salary adjustment. In spite of this, university administrators paid out outstanding salary and pensions, but 50 non-teaching employees and 66 retirees were not included since they were subject to the new pay riders that the senior secretary for higher education had established.
