PU forms another panel for regularisation of staff

Tribune News Service 

Chandigarh, August 20 

Panjab University’s Syndicate on Sunday approved the regularisation of employees in principle but formed a committee which includes Senators, Prof Navdeep Goyal and Prof Pam Rajput, along with others to discuss the modalities. 

Prof Goyal said, “The financial implication of regularising these employees is just around Rs 1 crore. The new committee had been formed to study the issue legally and form modalities.”

“We will see if there are more employees who  fall in the bracket of seven years of service or more. It is a humanitarian issue. A number of people will be benefitted,” he said. 

Currently, there are 426 daily wage clerks in the university. A meeting of a committee to frame a policy for regularising the daily wage workers was held wherein the president of the Panjab University Staff Association, Deepak Kaushik, had said that while workload had increased over the past few years, enough recruitment were not made.

The members of the committee under Kaushik had suggested different periods of time for the regularisation ranging from five to 10 years. The committee, however, decided that the period be fixed for seven years and forwarded the same to the Syndicate. 

Central University issue

The Syndicate pointed that there should not be any changes in the governing structure and service conditions of the non-teaching employees, if PU was to be declared as a central university. Also, Allahabad University model was talked about. It was declared an institution of national importance rather than a central university and fully funded by the Centre. Finally, it was resolved that the concept note would be redrafted for institution of national importance. 

“The issue will now be directly sent to the Senate for discussion,” said prof Navdeep Goyal, who has been asked to amend the concept note. 

Earlier, the committee formed under Senator Jarnail Singh had recommended that the present governing and academic structure of the varsity would not be disturbed and all the affiliated colleges in Punjab and Chandigarh would also remain with the university.

In the minutes of meeting on July 12, it had come out that the choice to grant central status to the university shouldn’t be restricted. It should rather be an open space to higher authorities to have a broader view so that declaring the PU as an institute of national importance could also be considered. 

It was Dr Gurmeet Singh of Hindi department who submitted the proposal of central university following which the committee under Jarnail Singh was formed.