Jamshedpur, May 17: Teaching and non-teaching employees of constituent colleges of Ranchi University can breathe easy.

Ending weeks of uncertainty, the university today released the pending salaries of the employees for March. The money was raised from the internal resources of the university after repeated requests to the state human resource development department allegedly fell on deaf ears.

Talking to The Telegraph, university spokesperson S.S. Akhtar said, ?The salary for March was released after the university took the initiative to mitigate the sufferings of teaching and non-teaching staff members. The human resource development department is yet to allocate funds for this purpose.?

This is not the first time that salaries have been withheld by the HRD department. Every year, between March and May, the teaching and non-teaching staff have to cope with delay in the payment of salaries.

?There are two reasons due to which the salaries of teaching and non-teaching staff are delayed between March and May. The budgetary provision for salary payment needs the approval of the cabinet, finance department and accountant-general?s office at the beginning of the new fiscal, which takes some time.

?Besides, the universities have also been asked to furnish college-wise details of salary expenditure, which they don?t do even after repeated reminders,? said a official of the HRD department.

Under-secretary in the HRD department, B.K. Verma, said besides Ranchi University, the other two universities ? Vinobha Bhave and Sidhu Kanhu Murmu ? also fail to furnish college-wise expenditure details in their utilisation certificates.

?The universities often complain of shortage of funds for salary payment. We can overcome this problem if their authorities cooperate with us,? said an HRD department official.

A university source said, ?Though the utilisation certificates are sent to the HRD department, they do not contain the details of college-wise expenditures. This is so because several colleges fail to submit the details in the required format. The authorities should adopt a strict stand and force the colleges to submit the details properly.?

The university?s move to clear the salaries was taken following a threat issued by the Ranchi University Constituent College Teachers? Association and the Federation of University Teachers? Association of Jharkhand. University sources said the cheques were sent to the colleges today.