Staff crunch hits maintenance work at Punjabi University

Ravneet Singh

Tribune News Service

Patiala, May 22

Employees at the Executive Engineer’s office in Punjabi University are burdened with overwork due to staff shortage. Meanwhile, works of the department have been left pending for long both due to lack of funds. 

The Executive Engineer’s office covers major engineering and maintenance works in the university. Though the department boasts of nearly having 400 employees, the number of regular employees there stands at just 100. 

Nearly 30 permanent employees at the department have retired in the past three years  and a similar number of employees are set to retire this year. 

In these circumstances, the department has been forced to complete its works with the help of daily wagers. 

An engineer at the Punjabi University department said, “The department’s expenditure has come down by 50 per cent in the past two years. On the one hand, the work is piling up due to the fund crunch, on the other, we have to make things functional with help of small hacks.”

Another employee said, “We are burdened with overwork as employees are retiring and the university has not been able to hire more people due to the paucity of funds. We work more hours these days. But this is not the solution. We cannot press the university to hire more people”

In a fix due to the issues faced by the department, the Executive Engineer has also not sent any letter to the authorities to hire more employees. 

Punjabi University Executive Engineer Manjit Singh Sidhu said, “We have not sent any letter to the authorities to hire more employees. We are ensuring the completion of works with the available employees.”

Punjabi University Registrar Dr Manjit Singh Nijjar said, “The university is not hiring more employees. At the same time, we are taking services of the employees responsible for construction work. The university is making sure that all pending works are completed.”