E-Paper
Mritunjay Kumar elected as new president of Panjab University’s teachers’ body
Kumar got 276 votes compared to his opponent Mohammed Khalid’s 235 votes.
Mritunjay-Naura group managed a clean sweep against the rival group of Mohammed Khalid in the elections of the Panjab University Teachers Association (PUTA), results of which were declared on Friday.
Mritunjay Kumar, who was the vice-president in last year’s PUTA, has been elected as the new president of the teachers’ body. Kumar got 276 votes compared to his opponent Mohammed Khalid’s 235 votes. With this, the Rajesh Gill group, whom the Mritunjay-Naura group owes allegiance to, has registered a PUTA win for the fourth year in a row.
Of the total 627 eligible votes, 520 (83%) were polled over two days of polling. Last year, approximately 94% polling was registered.
Aged 43, Mritunjay is an assistant archivist at PU’s AC Joshi library. He has pursued his masters in history from Centre for Historical Studies at Jawahar Lal Nehru University (JNU) and a PhD from Panjab University.
For the post of vice-president, with 268 votes, Supinder Kaur of department of laws, who is from Mritunjay group, emerged victorious against Amit Chauhan, who managed 242 votes.
Biochemistry department’s Amarjit Singh Naura, who was contesting for the post of secretary, got 274 votes against MC Sidhu’s 240.
With 288 votes, Sarvnarinder Kaur of biophysics department emerged victorious for the post of joint secretary against Anupam Bhari, who got 214 votes. Nitin Arora of economics department defeated Samarjit Sihotra to bag the treasurer’s post.
Returning officer Vijay Nagpal said, “We were not expecting the voter turnout to be this high. We made many arrangements for the conduct of elections amid the pandemic and polling was conducted smoothly.”
Mohammed Khalid, who lost to Mritunjay said, “We had a close fight, but the other group is backed by senators, so they managed to win the election.”
THE NEW BODY’S PRIORITIES
HT speaks to Mritunjay Kumar about the association’s plans to deal with the various issues being faced by the faculty:
1. Despite many attempts, implementation of the 7th Pay Commission is still pending?
We have already taken up the matter with the Punjab government and are sure that a decision will be taken in the coming months. If that does not happen, we will take up the issue again.
2. A large number of teachers are awaiting CAS promotions?
The pending interviews of CAS were earlier scheduled in March and April, but due to the pandemic, many are pending. We will take up the issue with the university this month itself.
3. University has slipped in this year’s NIRF rankings, what will you do to ensure quality education at PU?
We will work towards ensuring that no teacher faces any issue while getting an NOC for a research project. There are lots of vacant teaching posts in the university and we will also approach UGC to allow recruitments.
4. What will be your immediate priorities?
Immediate release of retirement benefits and provident fund, clinching of full pension after 25 years of service and leave encashment for 300 days. We will also work out the requirement of teachers regarding online teaching.
