Rival panels release manifestoes ahead of PU teachers’ body poll

Ahead of the Panjab University Techers’ Association (PUTA) elections, the team of Parveen Goyal and Sarvnarinder Kaur released its manifesto. The team has announced Goyal (president), Sarvnarinder (vice-president), Suman Sumi (secretary) and Vishal Sharma (joint secretary) as their faces for the elections. The election for the post of treasurer will be contested by Sonia B Bhardwaj.

This year the PUTA contest is triangular with three contestants for each post. “The team has many candidates who have been teacher activists and have contributed in achieving many milestones that have benefited the community,” said Goyal.

The group pledged to restore transparency, accountability and inclusivity in PUTA, which they believe has lost its vibrancy and weakened as the collective voice of the teaching fraternity. It also highlighted issues of declining democratic spirit, ineffective engagement, selective inaction, and lack of strategy.

Notably, the Teachers’ Voice United Front (TVUF) has also released its manifesto for the upcoming elections under the leadership of Ashok Kumar and Jayanti Dutta. The manifesto lays strong emphasis on addressing key issues pertaining to dignity as well as the welfare of teaching community without any compromise.

It promises to resolve the issues including, teachers’ retirement age and immediate disbursal of promotion benefits to dental faculty along with payment of arrears as per the law of the land to prevent unnecessary legal disputes. It also vows to fight for the payment of interest on the delayed payment of arrears. The manifesto advocates Old Pension Scheme for all university employees at Punjab Government pattern.

“The issue of PhD increments to the young faculty members will be resolved without delay. The unbiased CAS promotion mechanism with three windows every year will be resolved and time bond approval of counting of past service, execution of pre-screening of CAS promotion cases by avoiding unnecessary objections,” said Kumar. The manifesto also includes concerns relating to programming staff, chairpersons support system and FRP faculty.

In this manifesto, TVUF has pledged to work with integrity and collective spirit to strengthen teachers’ voice and to safeguard their rights within the university.

In addition, TVUF has invited the other two contesting teams – led by Goyal and Keshav Malhotra – to come forward for an open debate.