Senate clears PU annual budget, revised pay scales for teachers amid ruckus

While the PU syndicate – the executive arm of the senate – has already approved the board of finance recommendations, including the adoption of the Punjab government notification to implement the revised UGC pay scales in its meeting in November, the senate gave its nod on Friday. The senate also cleared the revised estimates of 2022-23 and budget estimates of the 2023-24 financial year.

Panjab University (PU) senate, the varsity’s apex governing body, on Friday approved the annual budget and implementation of revised pay scales for teachers amid hours of ruckus in the house.

Panjab University (PU) senate, the varsity’s apex governing body, on Friday approved the annual budget and implementation of revised pay scales for teachers amid hours of ruckus in the house. (HT File)

While the PU syndicate – the executive arm of the senate – has already approved the board of finance recommendations, including the adoption of the Punjab government notification to implement the revised UGC pay scales in its meeting in November, the senate gave its nod on Friday. The senate also cleared the revised estimates of 2022-23 and budget estimates of the 2023-24 financial year.

The meeting of the governing body was adjourned twice before the agenda items were taken up and only four agendas were cleared before the meeting was called off due to pandemonium in the house. The varsity officials, however, said the remaining agenda items will be taken up in the next meeting of the senate.

At the start of the meeting, the members of the opposite group demanded a statement from vice-chancellor Raj Kumar over allegations of corruption in the university which led to a heated exchange between the members of the pro-VC group and opposing group.

Questions raised over clearance of agenda

The university, in its official communiqué, maintained that four items including the recommendations of the varsity’s BoF were cleared by the senate. However, 13 varsity senators, including Davesh Moudgil, Parveen Goyal, Rajat Sandhir, DPS Randhawa, Harpreet Singh Dua, Jatinder Grover and Supinder Kaur, said that none of these items were discussed as there was ruckus in the house on the issue of alleged corruption in the university.

They also wrote to Vice-President of India, Jagdeep Dhankhar, who is the chancellor of PU, requesting that the varsity authorities be directed to record the proceedings appropriately and the items C1 to C4 be deliberated in the next meeting of the governing body.

Heated exchange between two groups

Following the drama in the senate meeting, both groups addressed mediapersons. From the opposite camp, PU senator and former mayor of Chandigarh, Davesh Moudgil said that there are various allegations of corruption in the university, be it regarding the MTS recruitment, unfair means cases (UMC) or regarding the affiliations. “We demanded an inquiry into all these allegations by an independent and external agency. We asked the V-C to give a statement of these allegations and mark the inquiry but he failed to address our concerns and adjourned the meeting twice before calling it off without passing any agenda item,” he said.

Members of the pro-VC group maintained that they wanted the listed agenda items to be discussed during the meeting. From the V-C’s camp, senator Devinder Singh said, “All these were academic and administrative agendas and we were requesting the members that these should be deliberated upon. We also wanted to pass the resolution given by a senate member for designating senior-most professors of the respective faculties to discharge the functions of faculty deans.”