Nehru institute gets its regular chief, finally!

New Delhi, Aug 11 (UNI) More than a year after her name was cleared for the post of full-time Director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML), Prof Mridula Mukherjee of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has finally assumed the charge.

The decision had remained mired in bureaucratic rules that prevented the JNU academician to assume the new responsibility.

''The Culture Ministry has upgraded the post to remove the anomaly that has prevented Prof Mukherjee from assuming the new post,'' a ministry official told UNI.

She succeeds Mr O P Kejriwal, who retired in February 2004.

As a Chairperson of the Centre for Historical Studies (CHS) at the JNU, she was drawing a higher salary, and as per the bureaucratic norms, could not move on deputation to a post at a lower grade.

Before the revision, the pay scale of the NMML Director was Rs 16,400-450-20,900 while Prof. Mukherjee was already on a higher scale. As per the government rules, the pay of the person concerned has to be protected when he/she is sent on deputation.

The JNU Administration, in a letter sent to the Culture Ministry in September last year, had informed that