PU Falls Short of INR 101 Crores, Unable to Release Salary Bills

Panjab University is in dire shortage of finances to the tune of INR 101 crores, as revealed by the Vice-Chancellor (VC) of the University.

Now, on the direction of Punjab and Haryana High Court, the VC of the University, University Grants Commission (UGC) and the officials of Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) will be holding an urgent meeting in New Delhi to find out a solution to this long pending issue.

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Arun Kumar Grover, VC of Panjab University said that he is trying to ensure the bare minimum necessity for the survival of the university. The shortage of funds has reached such an extent that the money for paying salaries to its employees for the month of December is not available.

In an interaction with the media, the VC said that the University is in shortage of INR 101 crore in this financial year. An allocation of INR 176 crore was made, out of which INR 44 Crore is yet to be released. The University needs around INR 145 crore from the centre. Every month the university requires INR 35 crore for the salary bill. In the next four months, an amount of INR 140 crore would be required by the university for the disbursement of the salary of its employees.

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It has submitted in written to the High Court that it has no money to pay salaries of its employees for December 2016 to March 2017.

Owing to the financial crisis, the PU Think Tank was formed by the V-C. They had suggested several measures like increase of the fees of the students. On the suggestions of the Think Tank, the University also increased the fees of the students. This measure alone, could not solve the problems of financial crunch.