Dons demand more

August 2, 2012, 7:49 pm , the island

It was heartening to read the news item in the front page of The Island of July 31 of the position taken by  President Rajapakse on the above. He quite rightly has said that there is no way their demand for more and more pay hikes could be met as that would prompt other professionals to follow suit. The dons should understand that there should be some parity in the salary scales of similar professions, as was the case a few decades ago, if not the entire administrative structure can collapse. The country has become almost ungovernable now because of the successive Governments’ failure to stand firm when unreasonable demands were made for pay hikes by powerful trade unions over the years.

If I remember right when I joined the Engineering Service in 1970, my salary was Rs. 650 a month, salary of a new recruit to the Medical Service was Rs 680 and the salary of an arts graduate joining the Administrative Service was Rs.620. All were on the same salary scale with an annual increment of Rs 30. The engineering graduates were given one increment more than the Arts graduates as the engineering degree course duration is one year more than the arts degree course and the Medical Doctors were given one increment more than the Engineers as the medical degree course is one year more than the engineering degree course. The Graduates joining the semi government services such as Corporations, Boards, Institutes etc.were paid generally 33. 3 percent more than their counterparts in Govt. service, mainly to compensate for the pension rights and job security to a certain extent. No wonder the services functioned smoothly then!

Talking about Dons in lighter vein, I am reminded of an encounter we had, in mid nineteen sixties at the Colombo Campus with our physics lecturer Professor Mylvaganam, a brilliant product of Oxford University and a superb lecturer,  who was extremely  strict especially to us male students!  Those days we had to get our "record books" signed by the lecturers in charge of the subjects in order to sit the exams, for some reason or other,  about twelve of us in the batch couldn’t get this done on time and we had to approach Professor Mylvaganam. We were standing just out side his majestic office which had swing doors and he could see our feet from underneath and when he roared " come in " , I almost got shoved in and my "friends" bolted! I quite respectfully handed over my " record book " and requested his signature timidly. He took it and without glancing at it even, threw it, through the open windows of his office on to the lawn outside and said

"COME IN MY FREE TIME AND I HAVE NO FREE TIME"!!!      

  R.Arambewela

  Colombo