Guest lecturers of government arts and science colleges have not received any pay revisions in the last three years. Despite doing as much work as regular lecturers, about 5,100 guest lecturers working in Tamil Nadu get paid only Rs 15,000, without any scope for performance appraisal, alleged Venkatesan Thangaraj of the Tamil Nadu All Government College UGC Qualified Guest Lecturers Association.

In January, the University Grants Commission hiked the salary for guest lecturers in colleges and universities to Rs 1,500 per lecture subject to a maximum of Rs 50,000 per month. In February 2010, the UGC made a similar announcement and fixed the maximum pay for guest lecturers as Rs 25,000.

Despite these pay hikes existing on paper, the government is yet to implement them, said Thangaraj. “While the Kerala government implemented the order, the Tamil Nadu government has not implemented it. Guest lecturers in the State get paid only Rs 15,000 a month,” he said. The State had revised the salary from Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 a month in 2016.

Mangat Sharma, the principal secretary to the Higher Education Department, said that the department is working on regularising the jobs of the guest lecturers.”We are working on a more permanent solution. We are strategising ways to make them permanent employees,” he said. Express could not get comments from R Sarumathi, the director of Collegiate Education, despite repeated calls and messages.

A guest lecturer from Thiruvannamalai Government Arts and Science College, on condition of anonymity, said that guest lecturers work almost as much as or even more than lecturers appointed by the government. “Colleges use us to compensate for their vacancies. We teach equal number of hours as regular faculty members. We still do not get the pay mandated by the UGC.”

He added that lecturers who have cleared the National Eligibility Test as mandated by UGC get paid the same as unqualified guest lecturers.