New Delhi, Aug 5 (PTI) Delhi University Teachers' Association (DUTA) has started an online petition, seeking President Ram Nath Kovind's intervention in resolving the issue of non-payment of salaries to employees of 12 DU colleges fully funded by the city government.

Kovind is the visitor to the varsity.

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"Several thousand employees of these colleges have gone without salaries from May onwards. Some colleges could only pay partial salaries for April. Colleges have not received any funding for infrastructure or teachers' posts towards EWS expansion," DUTA said.

The teachers' body accused the Delhi government of using the tactic of withholding funds as a strategic weapon in its tussle with the university over nominating people to the college governing bodies. 

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DU and the Delhi government have been locked in a tussle over the formation of governing bodies in 28 colleges, partially or fully funded by the city government, with both accusing the other of delaying the process.

"The Delhi government has made the teaching profession a tragic joke by making it a playground for their power games," it said.

The Delhi government had released Rs 18.75 crore as grant-in-aid for payment of salaries to employees of 12 University of Delhi (DU) colleges funded by it in June, which the DUTA had called as 'insufficient'.

Prior to that, the government had also sanctioned grant-in-aid in May, which was also termed as 'inadequate' by the teachers' body.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)