Building ‘glitches’ bone of contention for Senators

Amarjot Kaur

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 27

More than 50 Senators attended a Senate meeting, which was convened on Sunday by Panjab University Vice-Chancellor Prof Raj Kumar and Registrar Karamjeet Singh.

The zero hour of the meeting was marked by heated arguments over temporary affiliation granted to the DAV Institute of Management, Sector 10, and other issues — this went on for more than three hours.

The “constructional glitches” in the new buildings of Panjab University and their deplorable condition posed a huge concern for a majority of the Senators. Senator Rabindranath Sharma said: “In the Syndicate meeting on December 8 last year, it was resolved that a technical committee will be appointed to look into the constructional glitches at several newly constructed buildings of the varsity. Yet, no such committee has been appointed yet.”

“Now, the problems have been covered up, but not solved. Walls with water seepage in them have been whitewashed and stone tiles on the exterior of the buildings have been fixed with nuts and bolts. This is a shoddy cover-up for inferior quality material used in the buildings,” Sharma pointed. The Vice-Chancellor nodded and brushed the matter aside.

Chaos, drama at pu senate meeting  

Chandigarh: Swinging between chaos and resentment, Senators opposed the VC’s decision to withdraw the issue of reappointement of GGDSD College Principal Bhushan K Sharma. Bhushan has been courting controversies ever since the Syndicate gave a nod to his reappointment in February. The decision was met with anger and 19 Senators penned a letter to the Syndicate requesting it to schedule a special Senate meeting, which too was struck down on April 10 when the Syndicate decided against it. The VC had referred the matter back to the Syndicate. The Syndicate had given a nod to a special Senate meeting on April 21 for two other agendas — awarding Infosys Trustee Sudha Murty with Honoris Causa Degree (Doctor of Letters) and Vigyan Rattan to ISRO Chairman K Sivan, Secretary, Department of Space, at the university’s 68th convocation. At that time, Senate members had stated that if more than 15 Senators call for a meeting, the Syndicate had no authority to either accept or reject its proposal. The only power vested in the Syndicate is to give a date and time for the meeting. — TNS