Joint action committee of Punjab colleges starts 5-day dharna to oppose centralised counselling

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, June 7

Continuing to oppose the state government's decision to hold centralised counselling for all courses in all aided and unaided colleges of Punjab, a Joint Action Committee (JAC) of college managements, principals and teachers started a five-day dharna in front of the district administrative complex here on Wednesday morning.

Members of the principals' association Prof Ajay Sareen, Prof Anoop Watts, Prof Pooja Prashar, Prof Gurdev Singh, Dr Pardeep Bhandari and Prof SM Sharma led the dharna. Five members of the JAC which included staff from Amritsar-based colleges started a relay hunger strike.

The members of the JAC maintained, "Our colleges are not in a position to go in for centralised counselling. This will be a great loss to us as we are already facing challenges owing to mushrooming of private universities and the inclination of the students to move abroad."

With the deadlock between the government and the college authorities on for the past week, over 250 private colleges in the state, including those affiliated to Guru Nanak Dev University, Punjabi University and Panjab University have been lying closed as the staff had announced to boycott exam duties.

The exams of all private colleges affiliated to Guru Nanak Dev University have been going on in its constituent colleges.

The JAC members said that even as the PU had taken a stand not to go in for centralised admissions, its staff had joined them at the protest site to express solidarity with them.