Patna, Dec. 23: Playing Santa just before Christmas, the Patna University pay fixation committee members today dished out goodies to the teaching and non-teaching employees of varsity in the form of revising their salaries as per the Sixth Pay Commission provisions recommended by the University Grants Commission (UGC).

The seal on the salary revision, to be effective from January, 2011, would increase the wages of the Patna University employees by almost 50 per cent. The varsity employees will start getting the revised salary from February next year.

The decision to revise the wages of the Patna University employees was taken at a meeting held at the residence of Patna University vice-chancellor Shyam Lal. It was attended by the pay fixation committee members, including Dr Vijay Prakash Singh and Dr Rajiv Ranjan Prasad of PMCH and the Patna University pro-vice-chancellor, S.I. Ahson.

The pay fixation of the Patna University assumes importance as the decision to revise the salaries of the teachers of universities and colleges was taken by the Bihar government in July 2010. A letter in this connection was sent to all the universities, including Patna University, vide HRD notification on July 29, 2010. But barring the Patna University, no other university has fixed the new salaries of its employees till now.

The Patna University will issue a notice on the salary revision of its employees once the university reopens after the Christmas holiday. The teachers will be given some time to air their grievances. Thereafter, the university will send the pay fixation report to the HRD department. Once approved by the HRD department, the teachers will get their new salaries, most likely from February for the month of January.

Following the pay fixation, the designation of the teachers will also change. Lecturers will be known as assistant professors and readers as associate professors.

After the pay fixation, the pay scale of assistant professors will be Rs 15,600-Rs 39,100, with Rs 6,000 of additional grade pay. The associate professors will be put in the salary bracket of Rs 37,600-Rs 67,100 with additional Rs 9,000 as grade pay. The salaries of professors will be same as that of associate professors but they will get additional Rs 10,000 as grade pay.

K.N.P. Sinha, the development officer of the Patna University, said: “With the pay fixation of teachers and non-teaching employees, the university has fulfilled their long-pending demand.”

The Patna University Teachers’ Association’s (Puta’s) general secretary Randhir Kumar Singh said: “As the university has fixed the salaries, the government should release the new salaries as per the UGC recommendations as soon as possible.”

On Tuesday, Puta had staged a demonstration at the Patna University’s main office in protest against the unusual delay in the fixation of salaries of teachers in the revised UGC scale. More than 250 university teachers staged the demonstration demanding pay fixation of teachers’ salaries as per the UGC guidelines.