Anomaly in the Pay Scale of Library and Information Asst.

[S. Rathina Sabapathi]

The anomaly in the  pay scale of Library and Information Asst working in Govt. of India institutions are not yet solved. To solve this, a united effort of professional, staff association is essential. The associations at National Library, Kolkata, ILA, IASLIC, Confederation of Central Government employees and workers,etc. should take up the issue further and must demand to implement the legitimate justified demand of Library staff. Interested persons may send RTI letters to finance ministry/ Min. of Culture to get information, or even we can think of approaching court of law. Absence of a professional body for Govt. library staff is a big handicap. Someone, please come forward and act for betterment of govt. library staff.

Comments, opinions on this issue are invited.

[Siddhartha Shankar Ray]

Dear Sri S. Rathina Sabapathi,

Thanks for addressing an extremely important and long laying discrepancy. In fact the entire range of  young library professionals since last quarter of a Century had been suffering and no solution has come up yet except some stray incidents/cases and ironically no professional Association has ever taken up this issue seriously. However, there are reasons too.

First,the pay scale and designation. There had been numerous designations with the pay scales for employees where requisite qualification had been B.Lib. Sc. they had been Librarian, Library Assistant, Junior Technical Assistant, Librarian (Grade....), Scientific Assistant (Library), Technical Assistant, Technical Assistant (Library) Grade...); Library Assistant Grade...), Cataloguer etc. etc and the pay scales varied from 

Rs. 330-560; Rs. 380-560; 3Rs. 80-640; 4Rs.25-700 & Rs. 425-800 during 1980s.

As such, during the 4th. CPC, the Government confided the complexity of the designation LIBRARIAN and quite a large number of pay scales for this designation. A Committee under the chairmanship of DP. Chatterjee was set up in 1986 and in 1990, it submitted its report and recommendations. Here , for the first time the designation Library & Information Assistant was introduced for persons whose recruitment qualification had been B.Lib.Sc. and never-the-less, a particular pay scale (425-800) was recommended for them. But the employees did not take any notice because they had been afraid that it will make problems as a particular section of staff are to be (that is only Library Staff) taken into consideration and only they will be benefited and there will be unrest among others especially the assistants in general administration and Accounts departments. And it is an open fact that since those staffs deal with Finance and Service related matters, the top administrations by and large do not want to make any clash with them. So, though the recommendations vividly reported in the 5th. CPC they were not taken into consideration and as  Library professionals contribute to a very small percentage of staff , except some Government Departments, the earlier designations with their updated old scales remained . The DP Chatterjee Committee also recommended certain criteria for categorization of Libraries and recommended pay scales for heads of those Libraries and recommended some skeletal staff for each category of Libraries.  The Employers mostly did not complied to such recommendations and Professional Library Associations showed a very Luke warm response to the demand from their members!! 

As I understand Librarians of ICMR institutes went to Supreme Court court and won the case.As I can recall the judgement indicated that that it should be applicable to Autonomous institutes too.  The Council then compelled to introduce (albeit partly) the recommendation. Other institutes or bodies and especially,the professionals employed in establishments having definite time bound promotional avenues like CSIR etc. had never been interested or active as they have their own assessment & promotional rules according to MANAS. Staff at ICAR institutes  too were kept away so also ICSSR and other institutes.

Now the problem is until and unless one gets the actual designation how can s/he claim the pay scale?? the 6CPC has recommended Recruitment and promotional Rules for Library Staff and they have used the D.P. Chatterjee Committee recommended designations but in reality since such designations are not been given, the incumbents are being deprived. It is indeed a long saga of distress and deprivation and all the professional Library Association are absolutely aware of it. But so far their locus standii are concerned, they can just appeal but can not (or will not) go beyond that.

The remedy is a forum of Library professionals getting Central Govt.Salary and whose services are being governed by Central Govt. Rules to act to this effect unanimously &collectively.

Siddhartha S. Ray, Calcutta

[S. Rathina Sabapathi]

Dear Mr. Ray, Thank you for your response. In the fifth CPC period, a committee was set up to find out the probabilities of making Library cadre as an All India cadre like Doctors, IAS, etc. so that the  library staff will get appropriate recognition and it would remove stagnation in the same post. Further library cadre would be an organized service and all central organisations are bound to follow the instructions of the Govt. The library cadre will be governed by a central authority appointed for this purpose.  Unfortunately this has not been implemented. I have forgotten name of that committee which  traveled across the country to submit its report. If such a move takes place again, the library cadre will benefit.