Kolkata: Protests against centralised pension disbursement via DPPG spread across state-aided universities, with about 200 Presidency University staffers holding a rally on Monday. They said the state move “threatens retirement benefits and undermines institutional autonomy.”Although the higher education department recently granted a relaxation until June 30, allowing universities to sanction retirement benefits without routing them through the DPPG, teachers and non-teaching staff demanded that universities “retain employer authority, ensure 100% disbursement at retirement, reject DPPG mandates and continue the existing system.”
Chemistry professor Arnab Halder said pension commutation and leave encashment are “personal legal entitlements,” and routing them through government approval infringes employee rights. He also criticised the plan to release only 75% of pension and gratuity as “provisional,” calling it “unjustified and inequitable.” JUTA’s Partha Pratim Ray and CUTA’s Sanatan Chattopadhyay also attended the rally.
