E-Paper
CSA University in the red once again
THOUGH THE government has taken the Chandra Shekhar Azad Agriculture and Technology University (CSA) out of the deep freeze, the university continues to reel under a big financial crisis.
THOUGH THE government has taken the Chandra Shekhar Azad Agriculture and Technology University (CSA) out of the deep freeze, the university continues to reel under a big financial crisis.
The vice-chancellor of the university said, the government has shared the responsibility of payments amounting to Rs 11 crore, which included Rs 3 crore payment of interest on the GPF, payment of audit fee amounting to Rs 5 crore and pension liability of Rs 3 crore. All these payments by the government were done under the gesture of ‘de-freezing’ the grant. But the government did not make any cash addition to the actual grant money of Rs 19 crore, which the university had been receiving for the past several years. According to the V-C the government has released the grant in principle, but the university has not received any enhanced grants. He said salaries and other expenses of the university have witnessed a steep rise in the past five years but the grant remained ‘frozen’. This caused a deficit of Rs 25 lakh every month. The deficit was, however, covered by diverting funds received under different grants, he added.
At present, the situation has worsened due to hike in DA and its merger in the salary. This has raised the deficit to Rs 50 lakh per month, the V-C said. In this situation, the University has no option but to face the wrath of its employees and to suspend important projects.
The V-C said for want of funds, the compulsory Rural Agriculture Program (RAW) for B Sc Agriculture students was lying unexecuted. The State Government has not given its share of 25 per cent towards the programme till date. Similarly, it did not release its share of 25 per cent for carrying out projects under All India Coordinated Research Projects (AICRP).
He said a scholarship of Rs 1500 used to be paid to the research scholars but due to fund crunch, this scholarship has not been paid to scholars for the past five years. The meager grant affected the salary disbursement every month. At present, there was a backlog of a month’s salary, he added. “Employees are agitated over the non-payment of salary for the month of June 2006. We are planning to disburse it through other grants.” He added.