Palampur farm varsity salaries delayed, staff stir from today

Lalit Mohan

Dharamsala, July 4

The employees of CSK HP Agriculture University, Palampur, have decided to start a protest from tomorrow over the issue of non-payment of salaries.

This month’s salaries of about 850 employees and the pension of 1,500 pensioners of the university have been delayed. The employees today held a meeting in the university and expressed concern over the delay in the release of their salaries and pension. They decided to start a protest from tomorrow over the issue.

File cleared: Minister

• Minister for Agriculture Chander Kumar said he had cleared the file for issuing Rs 13-crore grant to Palampur agriculture university.
• It will soon be cleared by Finance Department and salaries will be paid.
• The minister said that the university has to generate its own resources as it is an autonomous body.

It is for the first time that the salaries of the employees were not paid on time.

Sources said that the salaries had been delayed as the state government had not released the Rs 13 crore monthly grant to the university. Earlier, the government used to provide the grant to the Palampur university on the quarterly basis. However, now it was being released on a monthly basis.

The state government has been telling the university administration to generate its own resources to meet its expenses and reduce burden on the ex-chequer. The sources said that many retired employees of the university were waiting for the payment of their dues like gratuity and leave encashment. The total arrears of the university employees and the pensioners amount to about Rs 220 crore. As the university does not have its own resources, it is dependent on the state government for the payment of arrears to the employees and the pensioners.

Minister for Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Chander Kumar said that he had cleared the file for the release of Rs 13 crore to the university. The Finance Department would soon cleared it and salaries would be paid to be the employees.

Chander Kumar, however, said that the university was an autonomous institution and hence need to generate its own resources. “The government will be evaluating the work done by the faculty of the university. They have to apply for projects and grants from the Union Government and other agencies to generate their own resources. The government will also evaluate how many patents the university faculty members have applied for and how they are benefiting farmers,” he added.