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It has been 4 weeks since the Panjab and Haryana High Court directed the nodal education body University Grants Commission(UGC) to release the grant of INR 30.5 crore to the fund crunched Panjab University, no fund has been released by the Centre till now.
The High Court observed that Panjab University (PU) is one of the oldest institutes in India, even older than UGC. The other universities were being offered 15 percent and above budget allocations. The Additional Solicitor General, on behalf of Centre, said that Government was scrutinising the proposal given by the University to increase the grant.
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Registrar of the University, Col GS Chadha, earlier this week after meeting with the Board of Finance (BOF), had gone to meet the UGC Secretary. But the official of the University did not give any specific reply on the release of the grants.
Vice-Chancellor of the University, Arun Kumar Grover said that they haven’t received any communication from the University Grant Commission on the release of the grant. But the matter is under consideration and may take some time, due to technical difficulties. The University said that it needed the money to pay the salary of staff and employees for the month of March. Right now the University has no money to disperse.
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Even the Punjab government has turned a blind eye to the financial crisis of the University. The Government did not increase the grant to the University, after repeated requests by the PU authority. Right now, the state has been doling out INR 20 crore grant to the University, which is much less compared to 2016's grant of INR 39 crore.
