Financial woes, protests took centre stage at Punjabi varsity

Ravneet Singh

Patiala, December 30

The year 2022 failed to be much fruitful for Punjabi University, Patiala. While it could not get the much-needed respite from its financial woes in the form of government grants, the university had to witness numerous protests by students, faculty and employees.

The Malwa region’s biggest university has been reeling under shortage of funds for many years. While it stands overstaffed, its grants received from the state government and other agencies for research purposes have also come down drastically. This year, despite two visits by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, saw its problems further aggravated.

The university has been incurring an expenditure of Rs 360 crore on salaries per year. The former Congress-led government had assured the university monthly grant of Rs 20 crore along with waiver of Rs 150 crore bank loan but had failed to deliver. This year, the AAP-led government decided to implement new pay scales for both teaching and non-teaching employees. As such, the university’s expenditure on salaries alone shot-up by over Rs 8.25 crore per month (around Rs 100 crore per year). This is while it has already been awaiting a loan waiver of Rs 150 crore since Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s first visit to the campus in March.

Budget estimates and grants

Importantly, as per the university’s budget estimates, it is supposed to face a deficit of Rs 206 crore this year. The UGC grant (development scheme) for general development, research projects, and other purposes also plummeted. It had received Rs 24.39 crore from the UGC in 2016-17, which came down to Rs 2.02 crore in 2020-21. The grants from other departments, including the Department of Science and Technology (DST), CSIR, ICSSR and others, also came down with time.

The university expected an increase in grant of Rs 100 crore per year from the government before the Chief Minister’s second visit in December, but received only verbal assurances.

Fund crunch hits staff

Due to lack of funds, the university has failed to release its employees’ salaries and pensions, to carry out daily activities efficiently. It has even failed to provide funds for experiments at campus labs. The university has not increased its income from tuition fees as it caters to students from poor families as well, which thus has remained static for years.

Protests by faculty members

The financial worries of the university have repeatedly pushed its faculty members to hold protests. The university in fact decided to release salaries of its teaching, non-teaching employees and pensioners under different heads separately. The protests over grants were repeatedly held by members of the teachers’ association, non-teaching employees and security guards and cleanliness workers. The cleanliness workers in fact, littered the campus repeatedly, which even forced the university administration to come on the ground to carry out the cleanliness work on their own. Meanwhile, students protested lack of basic facilities in hostels.

Financial, recruitment scams

The university is also marred by various financial and recruitment scams committed in the past. While it handed over the investigation into a UGC research scholar-related scam worth over Rs 14 crore to the Enforcement Directorate. Students associated with many students’ unions have been demanding action in alleged previous scams.

Service window

The university recently inaugurated service windows at its enquiry and information centre to assist students’ issues.

This year, it was able to hold a number of departmental programmes, inter-university youth festival, workshops and international conferences and lectures after a long gap due to Covid-19 pandemic.

Punjabi University became the nodal centre of ISRO’s institute for the distance learning programme.