PATNA, May 23 -- Thousands of retired teachers and employees of Bihar's state universities have not been paid their pension for the third month straight as the grant is reportedly stuck between the education and finance departments. The situation is the same for salary payments in universities, with teachers and employees going without pay into the third month. Only a few universities are somehow managing. "It will not take too long now and we are hopeful the funds will be released soon. Things are in an advanced stage and it should be clear in the coming days," said higher education director NK Agarwal. Another department official, however, said that the finance department had reasons: utilisation of previous funds must be submitted first to get a fresh allocation and the file was returned twice, followed by a new minister in the department. "The finance department wanted the new minister's approval on the file, which has now been done. The previous minister had also approved it. We have convinced the finance department that a lot of backlog utilisation has been submitted and the rest will also be done at the earliest, as this is an old issue, but funds for salary and pension should not remain stuck," he added. The higher education department as well as the Chancellor's secretariat has been particular about the timely submission of utilisation certificates, but this is a chronic problem with state universities and the teachers and employees suffer through no fault of their own. "If the universities are at fault, accountability should be fixed, but nothing of that sort happens and VCs in the past got rewarded with another term while teachers, employees and pensioners suffer. Everyday we get hundreds of calls inquiring about salary and pension, but Bihar seems to have developed a system of quarterly payment," said Federation of University Teachers Association of Bihar (FUTAB) working president KB Sinha. The problems with the universities are real, as 2-3 universities have not yet submitted even the budget for the 2026-27 fiscal year, and if the department releases funds based on the previous budget, they would complain about a shortage, said the department official. "This is May, and without the budget, how can money be released? I have heard the Patna University Senate meeting is on Saturday and after that it will send its budget. The leadership in universities must become pro-active and rise above petty things. The budget for Magadh University is also still awaited," said a senior higher education department official. In March, FUTAB had also written to Bihar Chief Secretary Pratyaya Amrit about the plight of retired teachers awaiting pension, as the pension was stuck since January even then, and urged him to adopt the Madhya Pradesh model of pension payment through the State Bank of India. The matter of delayed salary and pension during the festive season was also raised in the House during the Budget session. Last year also, around the same period, thousands of teachers and employees of the universities and retired ones were left without payment for 3-4 months, and then it was blamed on the snag in Comprehensive Financial Management System (CFMS 2.O). This is despite the fact that in 2023, the then Additional Chief Secretary (education) Dipak Kumar Singh, who has been transferred to the Raj Bhawan as Governor's principal secretary on Friday, had told the Patna High Court that the department would work out a mechanism in consultation with the VCs and related officials of universities to ensure timely pension payment in universities. The HC had earlier, while hearing a contempt petition, cited the Division Bench order of 2018 with regard to modality of payment of pension to the retired employees of the universities and observed that the retired employees must get pension every month....