Varsity staff lament pending confirmation letters, salary

Tribune News Service

Patiala, March 21

Punjabi University’s non-teaching Class B and C (ad hoc) employees are working without the issuance of confirmation letters for the extension of their contract for more than six months now.

The university has not even paid the employees, who said the matters should be taken up in a Syndicate meeting.

Gurinder Pal Singh Babbi, president of the Class A officers’ association (non-teaching), said: “Class B and C ad hoc clerks have not been given extension for over seven months. There are 90 employees in the category and the confirmation letters for 40 of them are pending. Of these, seven or eight have been waiting for the letters for more than seven months.”

Another employee said the confirmation letters had been issued to 52 of them so far.

Ad hoc worker Sandeep Singh said: “We were promoted in July last year but the university decided to give us the confirmation letters through the Syndicate before starting the payments. The matter has not been taken up ever since.”

Officials on the campus said similar confirmation letters of extension of contracts of over 160 contractual teachers of neighbourhood campuses, university campus and constituent colleges were also pending since January 14.

Lovedeep Sharma, president of the Punjabi University Contractual Teachers Association (PUCTA), said: “Confirmation letters of extension of our six-month contracts have been pending since January 14. However, the teachers are executing their responsibilities. We have submitted a memorandum to the university, but to no avail. The matter is supposed to be taken up in a Syndicate meeting, but the university did not discuss it in the meeting held on February 25.”

He said the contractual teachers and their families are dependent on their salary, but they had not been paid for over two months. The university was yet to respond to the matter.

Meanwhile, university officials said they were working on it and would try to resolve the issue by Tuesday.