Mangalore: The Dakshina Kannada and Udupi District Guest Lecturers’ Association members took out a silent march from the office of the Joint Director of Collegiate Education to the Deputy Commissioner’s office in Mangalore on October 4, Thursday,  in order to draw the attention of the authorities towards their longstanding demands.Later, they launched a hunger strike in front of the Deputy Commissioner’s office. The strike will continue till 5 pm.

The Association has said that it has decided to stage the protest after its repeated appeal to the authorities  on various earlier occasions  have fallen on deaf ears.

The main demands of the Association are to provide salaries to the guest lecturers for all the 12 months in a year instead of paying them for just eight months and to increase their monthly pay to Rs 25,000. Other demands are to clear the ambiguity in the 2012-13 circular and to pay the salaries to the guest lecturers regularly, to clear all the wage arrears for the past academic year in one instalment at the earliest, to give priority to seniority of service during selection of guest lecturers and to consider M.Phil graduates too on par with PH.D degree holders and NET, SLET passed candidates.

Chandrashekhar of the Guest Lecturers Association, Sunil Kumar Bajal, CPIM leader and Muneer Katipalla, DYFI leader also addressed the agitators.

Ira Nemu Poojari, President, DK Chutuku Sahitya Parishat and Ronald Fernandes, Member, Karnataka State Government Employees Association were also present among others.