Kolkata, Sep 20 (IANS): The West Bengal government on Wednesday took a decision that the salaries of teaching and non-teaching staff at the state universities will be directly credited from the state treasury now.

In the earlier system, funds for the salaries were transferred to the designated accounts of the state universities, which then disbursed the salaries to the teaching and non- teaching staff.

In simple words, the payment system for state university staff will be the same as direct state government employees from now on.

The decision was taken at a meeting with the finance officials of 11 state universities.In the changed system, the drawing and disbursing officers (DDOs) for the state universities will be bureaucratic representatives from the state higher education department, which will virtually bring an end to the financial autonomy for these state universities.

This apprehension of ending the financial autonomy of the state universities had been doing the rounds for some time now following the caution from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to create economic blockades by stopping funds supply from the state exchequer to those state universities, which will operate as per the directives of the Governor.

Different teachers' associations had also threatened to take the legal recourse in case there is any attempt by the higher education department to end the financial autonomy of the state universities.

Now with the changed system of payment of salaries, that apprehension has turned true to a great extent.