SPPU faces financial crunch, appeals alumni to donate

In a bid to help the Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) financially, a system will be made in place to reach out to alumni students across the globe.

Along with this, several other important decisions and discussions were held on Monday at the SPPU’s management council meeting. SPPU vice-chancellor Nitin Karmalkar along with the council members and other senior office bearers of the SPPU attended the meeting.

The decreasing number of SPPU’s savings, decline in interest rates and to increase the income of SPPU by various means was the topic majorly discussed at the meeting.

Also, the draft for the forthcoming SPPU budget for 2021-22 was discussed at length and sanctioned during the meeting. After several changes to be made in this budget draft, it will be presented in the last week of March.

“There was ₹550 crore in the SPPU saving funds earlier, which has now reduced to ₹350 crore. Government grants are reducing, and decreased interest rates of the banks have affected the SPPU yearly budget. Also, the expenditure on faculty’s salaries have increased, so to create new sources of income was the discussion made in today’s meeting. In this, a proposal was made to get help from alumni students who are at various positions across the globe. For this, we are going to create bank accounts and other systems will be made in place,” said Rajesh Pande, SPPU management council member.

“We are now going to focus on fewer expenses to be made in the budget draft and only necessary allotment of funds will be done. As the saving funds have drastically gone down we need to look for alternative incomes now, as we won’t be able to sustain for long with it,” added Pandey.

SPPU vice-chancellor Nitin Karmalkar said, “In today’s meeting, an important decision to give sanction to forthcoming SPPU budget was taken, also there was a discussion on clearing the audit. We are also going to appeal to our alumni students to help SPPU financially, for which an official circular will soon be issued from us.”

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During the SPPU management council meeting, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) Pune division student volunteers protested inside the meeting hall for various demands. One of the major demands raised by ABVP was to return back the examination fees taken from students by colleges. Last year, in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic exams of all students except last year students were cancelled and everyone passed. However, the exam fees were taken from students, so demand was made to return back the fees to the students immediately. The SPPU examination department issued a circular to all affiliated colleges to submit their report about examination fees and after taking a review, a further decision will be taken.