An assistant professor at Nitisheshwar College in Muzaffarpur, Bihar has returned about Rs 24 lakh to the salary department.
He was hired in September 2019
In these 33 months not a single student came to his class.
He said that his conscience did not allow him to take salary from the department without teaching.
33-year-old Lalan Kumar handed over a check of Rs 23,82,228 to the registrar of BR Ambedkar Bihar University (BRABU) on Tuesday.
The college is headed by BRABU State University
Talking to the media, Lalan Kumar said, 'My conscience does not allow me to take salary without teaching.
Some students attend Hindi classes even during online classes (peer time). If I took salary for five years without teaching, it would be an academic death for me.
Established in 1970 by freedom fighter Nitisheshwar Prasad Singh, Nitishwar College is affiliated to BRABU since 1976. There are undergraduate courses in arts and sciences.
College principal Manoj Kumar has questioned the intention of returning Lalan Kumar's salary. “The question here is not just of absenteeism, but of coercion to be transferred to the postgraduate department,” he said.
Lalan Kumar, who holds a Master's degree in Hindi from Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi and a PhD and MPhil from Delhi University, applied for transfer to the PG department to 'join academically'.
This was his first job after joining. Lalan Kumar said that he did not see the atmosphere of education in the college. "I listened to my conscience and decided to return my two years and nine months' salary to the university.
Nitisheshwar College has about 3,000 students, out of which about 1,100 graduate students have to study Hindi.
Apart from the guest teacher of the subject, Kumar is the only regular Hindi teacher in the college.
When asked why the students were absent even before the outbreak, college principal Manoj Kumar did not give any specific reason. “The repeated examinations have affected the academic activities in the college,” he said.
He said, Only a few months after Lalan Kumar joined the college, the world saw many waves of Covid-19. We used to have online classes in those days.