Mumbai: In a relief to around 50,000 students, the University of Mumbai (MU) will resume from Monday (February 6) the winter session exams that were postponed due to a boycott by the varsity's non-teaching staff.
The university said that the exams will be held according to the existing schedule, except for the papers that were to be held on Friday and Saturday (February 3 and 4). The new timetable for the missed papers will be uploaded on the university website mu.ac.in.
The university had on Thursday put on hold exams for LLB, LLM, MA, MSc, MCom and other courses after the non-teaching staff decided to boycott all exam-related activities over various unresolved demands including recruitment for the vacant non-teaching staff positions, implementing salary benefits under the seventh pay commission, and old pension scheme among others.
The protest is led by members of the Non-Agricultural University and College Servants Joint Action Committee, who are also protesting at Savitribai Phule Pune University, Shivaji University, Jalgaon University, and Amravati University as well.
On Friday, Maharashtra Higher and Technical Education department directed MU and Shivaji University Kolhapur (SUK) to find alternate means of conducting their examinations, which were postponed indefinitely due to a strike by the varsities' non-teaching staff.
In a letter to the state's all non-agricultural universities' V-Cs, the department termed canceling their exams without informing the government is a "matter of serious concern", asking the universities to urge the protesting staff to resume their duties and even start disciplinary action against the protesting staffers.
Keshav Tupe, Joint Director of Higher Education, Mumbai Region, had also met with MU officials and protesting non-teaching staff to find a resolution to the impasse.
