AFTER BEING FIRED BY SINHGAD TECHNICAL EDUCATION SOCIETY ... Mali power engineering finance Days after Sinhgad Technical Education Society (STES) issued notices to 30 professors, terminating their jobs and giving them a month to leave, one of these enraged employees uploaded a video of him setting his original marksheets and degree certificates afire, blaming the education sector for destroying his life.Soon after the video went viral in education circles, the frustrated teacher was identified as Suraj, an assistant professor at the mechanical department of the RMD Sinhgad Technical Institute’s Warje campus before his dismissal. He was with STES for 1.5 years on an ad-hoc basis, when he received the relieving letter on November 12. The 29-year-old shared, “I worked dedicatedly for the institute. But, when I demanded my salary, they not only left me unpaid, but also fired me. I have lost all faith in the teaching and education field, as it made it difficult to earn a livelihood. To even do away with the option, I decided to burn all my certificates. Now, I will try my hand at a business.”Before Sinhgad, Mali — who has a Masters in heat— worked at Zeal Engineering College. He alleged that after joining the latter, he has not received a single salary, and was always paid in bits and pieces. “It is tough to be a professor at Sinhgad. Remaining unpaid, I had to borrow money from kith and kin. When I thought to take a personal loan from a the bank, they refused, owing to the lack of salary slips. All this impacted my personal life, too,” he rued.While STES had also issued cheques to several other staffers who have resigned from duties over the last few months, they have emailed these ex-employees that since the society’s bank accounts have been seized, it will not be possible to release the amount now. “Their mail says employees can contact theirdepartment only in the first week of December. Initially, they had promised the salary release on November 16, 22 and 26,” said a member of the he Sinhgad Samanvay Samiti, a group of professors fighting against these unpaid salaries.As the sole breadwinner of his family, with a 1.5-year-old son to raise, Mali is now worried about his future. “Business is the only option left because as a professor, I could not earn enough for my family. Even after working, we just have to ask for our rightful salary to get terminated. There is no use of certificates and degrees — they give us jobs, but the jobs betray us. It was not an easy decision to set them alight, but I was at my wit’s end,” he explained.The video, accompanied by a letter, blazed a path through his peers. Sinhgad Samanvay Samiti further informed that there are at least 200 such employees whose cheques have bounced, awaiting word from the institute. A Samiti representative shared on the condition of anonymity, “Every day is difficult for these professionals. They are getting impatient. While on the one hand, the Bombay High Court has instructed the institute to take 96 terminated professors back, on the other they are removing ad-hoc basis professors.”

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