MADURAI: The ‘Save MKU Coalition’ has today appealed to the Chief Minister Mr.M.K.Stalin to take steps for reinstating the 136 contract employees who were ‘mercilessly’ terminated from service by the university authorities recently and it urged him to quickly intervene in this matter on compassionate grounds.
“We strongly condemn the new Vice-Chancellor Prof.J.Kumar for sacking of 136 consolidated pay/casual labour without any notice or proper reason. They are working in this university for last 10 years on contract basis and most of these employees were selected after due selection process. How can they be sacked now all of a sudden by citing the university’s financial position? All hopes are now on Chief Minister Mr.Stalin to consider our plea on humanitarian grounds,” the ‘Save MKU Coalition’ has said.
Talking to reporters on this issue in Madurai on 26th April 2022, the ‘Save MKU Coalition’ president Dr.A.Srinivasan and its secretary Dr.R.Murali said that it is totally unfair on the part of new vice-chancellor to sack the contract employees who were recruited many years back after approval by then vice-chancellors and varsity syndicate members. “For no fault of theirs, these innocent employees became victims. They are all working for very less salary on consolidated pay basis and casual labour. The new VC had suddenly removed them from work even though there is requirement of staff in various departments of MKU. Citing paucity of funds as a reason is a weak argument,” Dr,Murali has said at the press conference.
Dr.Srinivasan has pointed out that there are several doubts on how the list was prepared to terminate the contract staff-casual workers. “The list is discriminatory, it looks like a pick and choose. The State government should take note of the MKU crisis. Financial mismanagement of a few former VCs and former Syndicate members is the reason for this university’s financial crisis. In such a case, how can you remove the employees in one stroke when the problem lies elsewhere,” Dr.Murali had questioned.
The members of ‘Save MKU Coalition’ have also demanded that a special committee should be formed to thoroughly study the current financial position of MKU and how it had deteriorated from a position of corpus to crisis in the last 10 years because the university was financially sound till the year 2010.
Dr.S.Krishnasamy, treasurer of Save MKU Coalition, senior members MUTA Vijayakumar, Mr.Veeman and legal advisor Mr.Vanchinathan were among those present at the pressmeet held in Madurai on April 26th 2022.
