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Review PU’s request for grant enhancement: Centre to UGC
This comes in the backdrop of the Northern Zonal Council Meeting, chaired by Union home minister Amit Shah in Amritsar on September 26.
The Union ministry of education has written to the University Grants Commission (UGC) to review Panjab University’s financial position and examine the requests for enhancing the grant given to it for implementation of the revised pay scales.
This comes in the backdrop of the Northern Zonal Council Meeting, chaired by Union home minister Amit Shah in Amritsar on September 26. Shah had advised both Punjab and Haryana to settle the issue amicably, even as Haryana has been demanding affiliation for colleges in Ambala, Panchkula and Yamunanagar districts in exchange for meeting the expenses of the university.
Punjab had rejected this proposal here as well as in earlier meetings convened by UT administrator and Punjab governor Banwarilal Purohit. Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann had contended that while the state had fulfilled its commitment, the Centre was yet to approve its share of the enhanced grant-in-aid of ₹51.89 crore to PU on account of adopting UGC scales.
As per the letter written by the Union ministry under-secretary Ajeet Kumar, both PU vice-chancellor as well as the principal secretary, department of higher education and languages, Haryana, had written to the ministry regarding this. The matter of financial assistance to PU by the central university has been examined by the ministry in collaboration with the UGC in the past.
The ministry had received a request from PU to sanction funds as per the revised pay structure which is ₹348.3 crore instead of ₹294.8 crore. The ₹294 crore amount is based on the unrevised pay structure with a 6% annual increment and PU had also asked for ₹266.5 crore as a one-time grant to meet the liability of arrears as per the pay revision.
The ministry on June 15, 2023, had informed the university that there is no possibility of further increase in salary grant of Panjab University and forwarded the request of PU to the Punjab government.
After again receiving requests from PU and the Punjab government, the UGC has been requested to review the varsity’s financial position and examine the requests for grant enhancement. UGC has been asked to furnish a report in this regard to the ministry.
PU had adopted the 6th Punjab Pay Commission for the non-teaching staff in March last year, revising their pay, while that of teachers was hiked with the implementation of the UGC 7th Pay Commission recommendations, earlier this year while the grant received by PU hasn’t been hiked from the Centre’s side. Further, in a letter to the Punjab government, PU had highlighted that since 2020-21, the state had not paid the annual 6% hike that it had agreed to do before the Punjab and Haryana high court from 2017-18, leading to a shortfall of ₹4.25 crore. Punjab government also has to pay ₹20.95 crore to the university under the post-matric scholarship scheme, owed for the period 2013-14 to 2019-20. For the 2023-24 budget as shared in the Board of Finance meeting held earlier this month, ₹346 crore will come from the University Grants Commission (UGC) as annual maintenance grant and another ₹85.37 crore will be received from the Punjab government.
