Retirement age of specially abled PU staff may increase

Bhartesh Singh Thakur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 19

Panjab University (PU) is all set to enhance the retirement age of physically challenged teachers and the non-teaching staff by two years.

The PU Regulations Committee, which has a meeting scheduled on Friday, will discuss bringing a change in the Regulation 17.3 under chapter ‘Conditions of Service of University Employees’ in the PU Calendar Volume -1 2007. The present retirement age of teachers is 60 years.

There is an issue in the implementation of the enhancement of retirement age. The Board of Finance (BoF) had recommended the change it in its meeting on November 28, 2017, but it did not mention the date of implementation. But now, it has been proposed that it should be applicable from May 22, 2017, as a circular of the Punjab government in this regard had mentioned this date.

According to the agenda of the Regulations Committee, in case the proposed amendment is agreed upon, the same will also be applicable to the non-teaching employees and the “Regulations 17.1, 17.2 and 17.3” will also be amended.

Other proposals

• According to the Regulations Committee, it has been proposed that the candidate seeking admission to BA (Honours) Economics and BA/BCom-LLB ( 5-year course) must not be above 20 years of age as on August 1 of the year in which admission is sought, while in the case of SC/ST the maximum age is 22 years.
• The medium of instruction is English and question paper also comes in English for the Bachelor of Library and Information Sciences (one-year course), but now it has been proposed that the medium of examination will be English or Hindi or Punjabi.
• For lateral entry in engineering, it has been proposed that if a candidate has a re-appear or compartment in diploma in engineering, he/she will not be eligible for admission even if the compartment is cleared by the time of counselling. Also, the condition of physics and mathematics in three-year diploma course has also been made mandatory. If a candidate has passed his diploma before 2015, they will not be entertained.
• For improvement in MSc (Microbial Bio-technology), a student will be given two chances but he/she has to apply within seven years of passing the degree.
• Advance Diploma in Labour Laws will not be a part time course now but a full time one-year course. The condition that it is open to in-service candidates has also been proposed to be removed.
• Advanced Diploma in Taxation will be a full time course now.
• It is proposed that a candidate who has re-appear in not more than two subjects in BA/BSc (III, IV, V, VI semesters examination of PU), he or she will be eligible to join MA/MSc first year (I and II semester) provisionally. But if re-appear is in the subject in which the candidate wants to pursue the masters, the admission won’t be allowed. However, the candidate won’t be admitted to the III semester of MA/MSc if he doesn’t clear the re-appear papers of undergraduate classes.

Candidates from paramilitary forces can also take up MA (Defence and Strategic Studies)

Earlier, only candidates who have served for five years in the Army, Navy and Air Force were allowed, but now those serving paramilitary forces for the same number of years will also be permitted. According to the agenda of the Regulations Committee, the condition of marks has been imposed for other candidates. Now, 50 per cent marks in the bachelor’s degree or BA with Honours in Defence and Strategic Studies will be considered. If a candidate has passed Defence and Strategic Studies at graduate level, then 45 per cent marks are required in the subject and 50 per cent in aggregate.