Patna: AN College zoology teacher Akhilesh Kumar has failed to pay his child's school tuition, so has geography teacher Davendra Kumar Singh. The college's faculty members have not been paid their salary since December.

Akhilesh said he had to pay Rs 28,000 as tuition and admission fees for his son Pratik Ranjan, a student of DPS, Patna, but failed to pay the amount this month because of insufficient funds. The zoology teacher said he had only Rs 3,000 in his account.

Akhilesh said he has not been able to pay the instalment for his home loan.

Davendra Kumar Singh, senior geography teacher at the college functioning under Magadh University now, has no money to buy medicines or pay his daughters' private college fees. The teachers have not been paid their salaries the past five months, even after the education department decided to pay them through the district treasuries.

"We are facing acute economic crisis, as we don't even have money to meet our basic needs. For the past five months we have been meeting our requirements through credit cards, but now the card's withdrawal limit has too expired," said Davendra. "I had withdrawn more than Rs 3.5 lakh from my credit card since December. Now I have to pay back the money at a monthly interest of around 20 per cent."

Many AN College teachers have taken loans from their provident fund account. One of them, Subhash Kumar Singh, is borrowing money from his relatives.

The teachers have decided to stage an agitation on Wednesday.

Physics teacher Kumar Shailendra said: "We have not witnessed such a bad situation in the past, our salaries would be delayed for a month or two, but this time we have not received our salaries for the past five months. Neither the college administration nor the university has an answer to our problems."

Sources said the delay in releasing the teachers' salary is because of an education department directive. The department had said the payment would be routed through treasuries in the districts concerned.

According to this, all state universities have been asked to open profit and loss accounts at treasury and the payment will be made through the account.

Minister Krishna Nandan Prasad Verma said on Tuesday: "The government is committed to regularise the salary payment of the university and college employees. Paying salaries through the treasury is a step in this direction. The teachers will get their salaries on time."