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PATIALA: The Vice-Chancellor of Punjabi University Patiala appointed new Registrar after the post was left vacant from few days since mass resignation of the teaching faculty members took place in protest.
The university authorities appointed Professor in the department of law, Varinder Kaushik as new Registrar and announced to hold the syndicate meeting and finance meeting on Monday.
The members of Punjabi University Teachers Union (PUTA), a Class Officers Association and B and C Class Association of Punjabi University Patiala continued for the fifteenth consecutive day on Thursday over their demands including the appointment of regular Vice-Chancellor. The PUTA members also protested against the appointment of the new Registrar on Thursday.
PUTA President Nishan Singh Deol strongly condemned the undue delay in resolving the issues pertaining to the employees of Punjabi University, Patiala and said that the non-attendance of the acting Vice-Chancellor at the university is the major reason for this delay though on Thursday VC marked her presence in the university. Nishan Singh said that the university is in need of a regular Vice-Chancellor.
He demanded that the process of appointment of regular Vice-Chancellor should be completed at the earliest and in addition to already announced grant of Rs. 90 crore, the state government shall release an additional one time grant of Rs. 300 crore. He also demanded that the monthly grant of the university should be enhanced to at least Rs. 30 crore.
Notably, around 42 teachers have given mass resignation in the past few days from their additional administrative posts including 28 teachers submitted their resignation from additional posts on March 25 while 14 more resigned on March 30. Deol said that this puts a big question mark on the working style of the current vice-chancellor and in such a case, the Vice-Chancellor should resign on moral grounds.
PUTA has rejected the 20-point checklist issued by the Vice-Chancellor. They also unanimously passed a resolution on Wednesday to oppose the new team to be appointed by the Vice-Chancellor to replace the resigning teachers.
A Class Officers Association President Gurinder Pal Singh Babbi said, “Due to the incompetence of the present administration even after the issuance of promotion letters the employees were not getting the due benefits. Such injustice is happening to every category of employees belonging to the university. The three elected organizations of the University are waging a common struggle to fight this injustice and this struggle will continue till the demands are met.”
The PUTA members said that the tenure of adhoc, work charge, contract employees has not been extended yet and even after the High Court has issued orders for extension of tenure, but the Vice-Chancellor has not issued the necessary orders regarding these extensions. They said that due to this delay a large section of the employees had not been paid their salaries for several months.
