Now financial irregularities are out too?

During the tenure of Prof (?) Vishwanath Sable, Dean of JJ School of Art, new stories are being heard every day about how the education and management of JJ is going to or has gone to the abyss. Readers of ‘Chinha’ experience this regularly. It is true that the funny stories are entertaining, but the terrible reality that is evident from it is disturbing to the former teachers and alumni of JJ. However, power always has an upper hand over wisdom. This is today’s reality and it is being felt more acutely in today’s trend of political alliances. That’s for sure. Still we continue to write and you continue to read.

There are four colleges in JJ campus. First is of course JJ School of Art, second is College of Architecture, third is Printing Technology and fourth is Applied Art college. From one of these four, a temporary teacher at JJ School of Art, who is just two or three years away from his retirement. But still working as a temporary teacher. Work for twenty five to thirty years and that too as a contractual or temporary teacher? Literally, this is an act that tarnishes humanity. Six such temporary teachers are currently working in JJ.

The seventh art teacher retired only last year. He also retired without becoming a permanent employee. Even after working in a government art college like JJ School of Art all his life, he did not get any service benefits. Poor fellow retired as he was. We hear that the case of all these teachers in that regard has now reached the Supreme Court. We also hear since the past ‘several months’ that the judgement will be announced soon. Will write about it in detail when necessary. But the story that we are going to narrate now is related to the same issue.

So, a teacher of one of the two art colleges in JJ campus had gone to the other art college for some work. There he met another teacher friend who was working in that art college. That friend has been working on a temporary basis for several years. Both of them had a casual chat over a cup of tea, discussed the weather, and somehow while chatting they started discussing salary. The teacher from the other college asked the teacher from the first college, ‘Did you get the salary of this month?’ So the teacher of the first college said, ‘Yes, already’. Hearing that, the teacher of the other college was furious. He said, Why among the two government colleges in the same campus, one pays salary on time and the other takes a longer time? So, the teacher from the first college said, ‘Who knows!’

The teacher of the second college asked him, ‘Do you have the pay slip?’ So the teacher of the first college said, ‘Yes, the salary was paid the day before yesterday, so it is in my pocket.’ ‘Let me see,” the teacher from the second college asked. The teacher of the first college took it out and gave it to him. He had no idea how this seemingly small incident was going to reveal a terrible case. So on and so forth.

The teacher of the second college was a well-read person. As soon as he took the pay slip in his hand, he noticed its nuances at first glance. He directly asked the teacher of the first college, ‘We work in the same campus. We do the same type of teaching job in two different colleges of the same government, albeit temporarily. How is it that you get a salary of Rs 90,000 and I get a salary of Rs 70,000 when you have the same type of work, the same time and the same experience as me?’ The teacher of the first college was taken aback, hearing  this. 

That teacher from the second college got up and went to his colleague. He also gets a salary of Rs 70,000 and he too couldn’t decipher how in another government college in the same campus it is Rs 90,000. The Directorate of Art office is located in the same campus. As soon as that teacher went there and inquired, there was a commotion. All the officials were confused. How did this happen? All the officers at the Art Directorate were also puzzled by this question. There was a financial irregularity, so an inquiry was made immediately. Usually, nobody bothers what newspapers print, and what ‘Chinha’ people publish. No one even cares about it. But this matter was immediately investigated.

And yet another case came out in the tenure of Prof (?) Vishwanath Sable, under whose rule JJ School of Art is run. The case is that, for about a year, six temporary teachers were being paid an additional amount of Rs 20,000 per month in their salary. Why was it being paid? No one can explain the reason for this. But there was a big mess in the salary bills which are drawn from JJ for fixed salaries. The clerk who drew those bills is said to be a person of great integrity. He does his work honestly. He must have made a mistake while calculating the increment and might have counted two increments instead of one, resulting in payment of additional Rs 20,000 per month to six teachers from the government treasury.

There is the Head clerk above the clerk. Was he not supposed to check this? He also ignored it and signed the file and sent it to the Dean. The Dean Saheb is not of the type who gets anything on to himself. He blindly signed the file. From there the file went to the Art Director’s office. Everything is hodgepodge over there. Anybody goes there to meet the Art Director and asks where he is, gets only one answer ‘Saheb has gone to Mantralaya’. The Art Director who spends the whole day in Mantralaya has no time to look at such files. (In fact, the ‘Saheb’ who is constantly roaming around in Mantralaya is described in local JJ campus slang as ‘the one who roams around fermenting the milk’) He must have signed the file without seeing it. (This Art Director is ‘In charge’. He is actually the principal of the architecture college in the same campus. In such a situation, you are right if you are wondering what he must be teaching the students. But you should ask that question to him directly. Anyway.) In this way, these six teachers were paid an additional Rs 20,000 per month for about one year. For the past several years, ‘Chinha’ has been bringing out numerous issues about JJ and the Art Directorate. But being the issues of the education sector and that too being about art education, no one cared to look into it. But this particular case is of financial malpractice. Is the Education Secretary going to pay attention to this? Let’s see.

Satish Naik

Editor, Chinha Art News