IKGPTU staff oppose decision to set up skill varsity at Chamkaur Sahib
Tribune News Service
Kapurthala, April 23
The staff of IK Gujral Punjab Technical University (IKGPTU) here is sore over the fact that the state government, without any prior recommendation of the varsity’s Board of Governors, has okayed the upgradation of Sri Guru Gobind Singh Institute of Skills at Chamkaur Sahib into a skill university from the 2021-22 session.
Notably, the Sri Guru Gobind Singh Skill Institute was to come up as IKGPTU’s constituent campus. The IKGPTU staff has alleged that the NOC for change of land use (CLU) was yet to be granted for the site and not even a single brick had been laid yet for setting up of the constituent campus when the government had even announced the upgradation of the proposed institute as a university.
Dr Dinesh Kumar, president of the University Teacher Welfare Association, said the IKGPTU had not granted any approval for it to be turned to a Skill University and the state government had no power to take any decision of its upgradation. “The Board of Governors is the sole decision-making body of IK Gujral Punjab Technical University,” he maintains.
Pawan Kumar Khichy, president, PTU Non-Teaching Employees Association, recalled: “The state government had planned to develop Skill University at Chamkaur Sahib as per the initial announcement made by the Punjab Chief Minister in 2017. But due to financial crisis, the state government could not fund the project and eventually put the financial burden on IKGPTU to establish its campus there with a plan to later convert it into Skill University.”
He added: “In 2016 also, the then SAD-BJP government bifurcated IKGPTU into two universities and created Maharaja Ranjit Singh Punjab Technical University for which they demanded Rs 550 crore from IKGPTU. A civil writ petition was filed by employees of IKGPTU against this decision of the Punjab government in the Punjab and Haryana High Court on which verdict came against the state government and its decision was held unconstitutional. The High Court further went on to state that ‘it is an outrageous and arbitrary provision which permits one separate statutory entity to make forays into the financial autonomy of another statutory entity created under a separate Act without there being a provision in it enabling such an outflow’. But by then, Rs 150 crore had already transferred. Going on the same lines, the current Punjab government is using the financial resources of IKGPTU to establish yet another university.”
Pre-empting such a move, the employee association leaders said they had already raised an alarm and had written to the Board of Governors not to establish any campus at Chamkaur Sahib via an email sent on October 18, 2018, but the BoG had then ignored the concerns of its employees.
They further alleged: “It is clear that the Punjab Government has very cleverly chose this time for the announcement as strict curbs have been imposed in Punjab regarding holding any protest. If the available financial resources of IKGPTU are diverted, then there shall be no funds left for the development of the university and to pay salary to employees”. The employee associations have planned to meet Governor of Punjab and Chancellor IKGPTU and Chairman BoG, IKGPTU, to register their grievance.
Politics behind move?
- The site for skill university is located in Chamkaur Sahib Assembly constituency represented by Technical Education Minister Charanjit Singh Channi
- The union leaders have alleged that the minister is using his influence to pressurise the BoG of IKGPTU to put aside all norms and expedite the establishment of skill campus at Chamkaur Sahib, which has now been upgraded to skill university
- Channi, they said, was doing all this to promote his political interests keeping in view the upcoming 2022 elections. They further alleged that the technical education under Channi had taken a downward trend with a large number of colleges closed and also admissions coming down significantly
