Chandigarh
22 June 2017
DIVYA AZAD
Former Union Minister and former city MP Mr. Pawan Kumar Bansal has come down heavily on the Union government for the grossly inadequate grant for Panjab university in the year 2017-2018. He condemned the move by the central government and said that it is just a move to strangle PU and just another ploy to force PU to increase the fees again.
The Ministry of Human Resource and development (MHRD) has agreed to give Rs 207.80 crore to PU this year against Rs. 197.73 crore released for 2016-2017. This has been stated in a letter addressed to the secretary UGC, a copy of which was sent to the Vice-Chancellor. The Punjab Government announced in its budget that it would give PU Rs 33 crore per year.
He said, “It is just a clever move by the central government. The grants have come with certain unjust conditions. The ministry has refused to pay for the previous deficit of the university which amount to Rs. 36 crores. The ministry has asked the university to meet the deficit on their own. Clearly it is an indirect strategy to force the university to increase the fee, he added.
Bansal said that last time the increase in fees invited protests in the campus by the students and serious damage to the university campus and students. Any move to increase the fees again can lead to similar protests and chaos.
Further, he also criticized the fact that the ministry has agreed to pay for only 1516 non-teaching staff members while the total no of non-teaching staff members is 4126, thereby asking the university to generate funds for 2610 employees. This puts at stake the future of large no of employees while generating funds for such large no is no easy task on the other hand. He also said that the annual increment of 6% is injustice to the varsity while for any institution the annual inflation has to be atleast 10%. DA also works out to that extent.
