There's some good news for Delhi University teachers and staff who have not been paid their salary regularly for the past six months. The Delhi government has sanctioned the release of the fourth instalment of funds for the 12 colleges under the University of Delhi which are fully-funded by the Delhi government. The government order states that Rs 82,79,79,507 has been sanctioned to pay salaries and an amount of Rs 9,50,90,500 under General or Grants-in-Aid other than salaries category.

Calling it a win for the teachers, Delhi University Teachers' Association President Dr Rajib Ray said that the Association will meet and decide what to do next. "An emergent meeting of the DUTA Executive will be held to decide on our action programme," he said. DUTA had called for a strike — DU Shut Down — to protest the lack of funds among other issues. This is the fourth and final instalment of Grant-in-Aid released for the colleges for the year 2020-21.

The staff of these colleges have not received their salaries and other dues for about six months but the irregularities have been on for around 14 months now. They along with the DUTA has been protesting about this issue and have written to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal as well. "The DUTA has been writing to you for more than a year now communicating its dismay at the manner in which your government is treating the employees by linking the release of grants and payment of salaries, pension, medical bills and other dues of employees with extraneous reasons that are neither the making of the employees nor in their control. It is also not acceptable that the Government expects institutions to pay salaries from other resources than the grant-in-aid that is the responsibility of the Government. It is extremely unfortunate that the actions of the Government have hit at the basic right to livelihood of employees," DUTA said in its last letter to the CM.