11-06-2025
Funds released, long wait for salary, pension over govt teachers and retirees
In a big relief after months for thousands of teachers and retired staff of Bihar's 13 state universities, the grant of ₹1,094.091-crore has been released to the institutions for payment following Bihar government's approval, said a senior official of the education department.
The government had approved the release of the grant last week and now the funds have been released to the universities for disbursal to bonafide claimants which can reach them in a couple of days, said higher education director NK Aggarwal.
While ₹416.49-crore has been released for the March to May 2025 salaries, another ₹44.36-crore has been released for February salary in Pataliputra University's (Patna) and November to February salaries for Munger University.
For retirement benefits, a sum of ₹597.921-crore has been released for the March to May period, while another ₹35.32-crore has been released for backlog pension of February in TM Bhagalpur University, Pataliputra University and Munger University.
A letter to this effect was issued by the deputy secretary of the Bihar government, Amit Kumar Pushpak. It makes it clear that the payment to teachers and employees should be made in accordance with the slips generated by the payroll management portal and through the comprehensive financial management system (CFMS).
Thousands of teachers, employees and retired persons of the state universities have been facing a difficult situation due to delay and they were threatening protests in the election-bound Bihar.
Earlier this year also, the two teachers' bodies had to appeal to the Chief Minister after non-payment of monthly salary for over three months on the plea that there was some snag snag in CFMS 2.O system.
Agarwal said that at the meeting of finance officers and registrars of seven state universities on Tuesday, it was specifically told that the universities must ensure submission of individual details of arrear and difference of dearness allowance as well as deafness relief in case of retired teachers to have a realistic estimate.
'It is government money and every penny has to be accounted for. We have told the officials that the money is meant for those working on sanctioned posts, not others, and diversion of funds is not allowed. Even in case of guest teachers, those working on sanctioned posts. The details of those covered under national pension scheme (NPS) also needs to be made available,' he added.
Aggarwal said the government would like to streamline payment provided the universities also supported with proper compliance of financial norms and timely submission of utilisation and budgetary details.
'We have given six performa to the universities for 2025-26 Budget, which needs to be duly filled and submitted. Unfortunately only four universities have done it so far. We have urged them to submit the budgetary requirement for the 2016-27 fiscal by August, so that we could proceed further. Delaying it to December and beyond creates a lot of problems and leads to delays. If Senate meeting is required to be held twice, the universities can do it,' he added.
