Patiala, April 9: It’s a double delight for the Punjabi University, as chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh has increased the annual grant to the university along with the earlier announced special one-time grant of Rs 50 crore.
The University grant has almost been doubled against the previous financial year’s funds. This is for the first time that the university has received such huge outlay of the budget.
As per the final approved budgetary allocations, the Punjab government has sanctioned Rs 147.37 crore funds for the university, against the previous year’s allocation of Rs 88.08 crore. This includes the Rs 50 crore one-time special grant to bail out the university from its financial crunch.
The state government has increased the annual grant from Rs 88 crore to Rs 93.37 crore. Of this, Rs 4 crore has been released for establishing two research chairs in the varsity.
“The final outlay for the Punjabi University is Rs 147.37 crore, which is almost 80% more as compared to the last fiscal,” said Punjab’s DPI (colleges) Harjit Singh Grewal.
“To boost the higher education sector, the state government has increased the funding to all universities in the state. Punjabi University is its biggest beneficiary,” he said. He added that the budgetary outlay has been conveyed to the Punjabi University authorities as well.
As per data collected, the Punjab government has made an budget provision of Rs 251 crore for the universities in Punjab. Out of these, 60% amount goes to to the Punjabi University, which is catering to the Malwa region of the state.
This higher allocation has come after persistent appeals of Punjabi University vice-chancellor (V-C) Dr BS Ghuman, who met the chief minister and health minister Brahm Mohindra, to request an increase in the budgetary allocations.
While pleading the case for Punjabi University before the CM, Brahm Mohindra said that if the government has brought a V-C on merit, state should give him funds so that he can improve the functioning of the university. After this, the CM gave nod to increasing the budgetary allocations.
“The SAD-BJP (Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party) government, exploited the university by over-recruiting staff and had limited the University budget to tune of Rs 88 crore for the past three fiscals,” claimed officials.
Due to increase in the salary bill, the university was forced to take an overdraft to pay salaries. As a result, the university deficit had grown to Rs 228 crore, annually, with an overdraft of Rs 90 crore.
“With this budgetary allocation, the university will sail through the current financial year. But it would have been better if the state government would have kept the same allocation for the next three fiscals as well, so that the university could come out of debt,” said a university official, dealing with its finances, on condition of anonymity.
“Besides this, there is a need to make changes to the fee structure, as the university fee is much lower than of other varsities in the region,” the official added.
V-C Dr BS Ghuman said that with increased budget outlay, the university can manage its finances in the current year. “The increase in budgetary allocations, is an indicator of the state government’s faith in the university,” he said.
“It is now our responsibility to give dividend to teh state government by creating quality human resource,” he added. He further said that the university will soon start new courses to compete with other universities.
Source: www.hindustantimes.com
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