Punjab budget on Friday; PU again writes to state govt for grant enhancement
The university has already written to the Punjab government a few times regarding the matter during the recent months. The PU urged the state government to enhance its annual grant to the university in view of the implementation of revised pay scales for teachers and non-teaching staff.
As the Punjab government will be presenting their full budget on Friday, Panjab University (PU) has once again written to the state government seeking enhancement of its annual recurring grant to the university, besides a one-time grant to clear arrears.
The university has already written to the Punjab government a few times regarding the matter during the recent months. The PU urged the state government to enhance its annual grant to the university in view of the implementation of revised pay scales for teachers and non-teaching staff.
The university last month revised the salaries of over 600 faculty members and the pay revision for the non-teaching staff is also underway. The implementation of the revised pay scales will translate into a one-time burden of ₹278 crore for PU due to arrears since 2016 along with ₹56 crore recurring liability, including pension.
“As already requested, the PU has adopted the pay revision notification of the Punjab government (for both teaching and non-teaching staff) and salaries of university employees have been revised. Therefore, you are requested to enhance the amount of annual grant of PU on account of the implementation of revised pay scales,” the university wrote to the department of higher education, Punjab, on Thursday.
The university has also requested the government to release one-time additional grant for the payment of arrears.
Financial burden on university
The implementation of revised pay scales will translate into a one-time burden of ₹278 crore for PU, due to arrears since 2016, along with ₹56 crore recurring liability, including pension.
As per the university’s annual budget, the total expenditure for the fiscal stands at ₹992.29 crore of which the expenditure on salaries amounts to ₹412 crore. The salary cost is expected to increase to ₹480 crore in the next financial year.
As per the revised budget of the current financial year, the grant from the UGC is pegged at ₹278 crore and ₹41 crore from Punjab government.
Reinstatement of 6% enhancement
Meanwhile, the university also wrote to the state government again on Thursday, seeking reinstatement of 6% enhancement in annual salary grant for the 2022-23 financial year. In March 2018, the state had informed the Punjab and Haryana high court that it will be enhancing the grant to PU by 6% in the 2018-19 financial year. Thereon, it had increased the grant by 6% till 2021-22, when the enhancement was 4.81%. However, for 2022-23, no enhancement has been sanctioned.
