From: "Dr. A.T. Francis"
Date: Thu, April 4, 2013 12:34 pm
Dear Professionals,
I would like to highlight a serious anomaly happened and still continuing
in KeralaState on the implementation of UGC Scheme (1986, 1996 and 2006)
for librarians in universities and colleges in Kerala. Though there is no
provision in the UGC Scheme for the promotion from the lower cadre to the
UGC Entry Cadre of Asst. Librarian/ College Librarian, in Kerala it is
still continuing.
While implementing UGC Scheme, in the case of other teachers, the existing
Non-UGC Cadre posts like Junior Lecturer and Junior Asst. Professor have
been upgraded to Lecturer and Asst. Professor respectively and all the
incumbents in the Junior Lecturer and Junior Asst. Professor cadres
possessing Masters Degree in the concerned subject (Exempted NET) have
been inducted to the UGC Cadre and the then cadres in the Pre-UGC Scheme
like Junior Lecturer and Junior Asst. Professor have been closed for ever.
Due to some unscientific administrative reasons, either this
type of induction to UGC Scheme was not done in the case of librarians or
the NET was not insisted to the entry cadre of library professionals like
Library/Professional/Reference Asst. Ultimately, now the professionals
are divided into several classes and groups and many court cases have
emerged only because of the system generated issues. Hence, most of the
professionals,instead of concentrating in documentation and information
services, they are gathering, thinking and acting on the issues on how get
rid of these issues. The only way to solve these issues permanently is
implementing UGC Scheme to librarians as envisaged in the Scheme. The
following are the actions needed in this regard:
1. As in the case of other teachers, all existing incumbents in Library/
Professional/ Reference Asst. should be inducted to UGC Scheme as on the
date of possessing Masters Degree in the concerned subject (Exempting
NET).
2. To accommodate all incumbents in the Library/ Professional/ Reference
Asst. cadres on induction to UGC Scheme, sufficient number of posts
should be upgraded to Asst. Librarians as super numerary.
3. The existing cadre of Library/ Professional/ Reference Asst. may be
closed by upgrading few posts as Asst. Librarian and the remaining posts
should be downgraded to Jr. Professional/Technical Asst. (JPA/JTA) for
CLISc holders. All Dept. Libraries working in one shift should have one
AL and JPA/JTA each and all College Libraries and Divisions of the
University Library working in two shifts should have two AL and JPA/JTA
each (one each for one shift) and the existing posts of Library/
Professional/ Reference Asst. may be upgraded / downgraded accordingly.
4. It is also suggested to introduce Time Bound Promotion on completion
of 5 years for JPA/JTAs, instead of the existing system of Ratio
Promotion or vacancy/retirement based promotion.
Dr. A.T. FRANCIS, MCom, MLISc, NET, PhD
HEAD, LIBRARY & IT NODAL OFFICER
College of Horticulture
Kerala Agricultural University
Thrissur - 680 656, India, 91-9496839409 (m)
francisaloor@yahoo.com
