Sidelined, non-teaching staff oppose Central status to PU

Ishrat S Banwait

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 22

The teaching staff at Panjab University (PU) are gearing up to submit a proposal, demanding the Central status for the university. However, they are outnumbered by the non-teaching staff, which are against the proposal for the central status. They say they have not been contacted to discuss the issue even once and the teachers were monopolising the university affairs.

A committee formed by the Syndicate to consider Senator Dr Gurmeet’s resolution is all set to meet on Wednesday. The resolution proposes the central university tag for the PU to end its financial crisis.

The non-teaching staff union says the teachers are seeing only one side of the picture. Union president Deepak Kaushik said, “We are governed by rules of Punjab, we will be greatly affected by the change in the status but the teaching staff do not care to talk to us.” Kaushik says that he had raised the issue in the Senate too and some senators had supported him.

Kaushik adds that for central universities, a ratio of 1:1.1 is to be maintained between the teaching and non-teaching staff. The tag would thus lead to a lot of people losing jobs. The concept note of the PUTA, however, quotes examples of other state-turned-central universities where the staff was not retrenched. However, as reported earlier, the UGC has already asked the PU to achieve this ratio within five years.

The committee had met on May 4 and Jarnail Singh, former head of Mathematics Department is the chairperson. The Secretary to the Vice-chancellor is the convener of the committee and it sincludes professors of the PU and colleges besides a principal of an affiliated college in Punjab.

Concept note

The concept note contains various advantages of the tag and attempts to address apprehensions or disadvantages. The first point is that central universities cannot have affiliated colleges and thus the 192 colleges will lose affiliation. The note says that other state-turned-central universities continue to have affiliated colleges. One of the most important issues will be getting an NOC from the Punjab Government. The note claims that given the fiscal condition of Punjab, it can be ‘persuaded’ to provide the NOC. Another point mentioned is that the tag will compromise the autonomy of the varsity. The note says that it has already happened as the UGC has a decisive say in the decisions of the board of finance. The benefits of the tag include financial stability, fellowships of a central university for students, lower fee, increase in mobility of students and faculty, retirement age of teachers up to 65 and the five-year tenure for the Vice-Chancellor.