Peshawar varsity financial crisis takes new turn

PESHAWAR: The issue of the financial crisis in the University of Peshawar has taken a new turn as the provincial government through Higher Education Department has asked the university administration to share the data pertaining to employees and pensioners of the institution within three days.

The university administration, on the other hand, has convened an emergency meeting of the Syndicates to find out ways for overcoming the situation. The meeting would be held on February 3, said the spokesman for the university, Ali Imran, while talking to The News. The HED in its response to the letter of vice-chancellor of the university dated January 27, has asked the university administration to share total salary budget along with details of posts, allowances authorised by the university to its employees, recruitments, creation of posts and upgradation in the university.

The letter also asked the university to share financial statements, utilities, salary/non-salary spending and pensions for the last three years.

The style and language of the HED’s response to the vice-chancellor show that the Chief Minister’s Secretariat wants to mount pressure on the university administration instead of issuing them the bailout package, a senior official of the university told The News.

The vice-chancellor in the letter to the chief minister had requested him to announce a bailout package amounting to Rs 200 million for the payment of salaries and pensions for the month of January.

The vice-chancellor also demanded a monthly grant worth Rs 150 million for meeting the recurring expenses of the university.

The University of Peshawar is the largest and oldest seat of higher studies in the province. Thousands of students are receiving education here right from nursery until PhD level in its nearly 50 academic departments, a number of colleges and schools.

The economic crisis has hit the university hard, which has also caused unrest to the employees and pensioners.

The Peshawar University Teachers Association (PUTA), the representative body of teachers of the varsity, also held its emergency meeting and expressed concern over the state of affairs.

The meeting chaired by PUTA President Dr Fazle Nasir demanded the provincial government to announce a bailout package for the university at the earliest to overcome the growing unrest among teaching and other communities of the university.

The participants of the meeting urged the university administration to cut down its expenses and save the university from further crisis.

They said the provincial government seemed more interested in establishing new universities in the province and they have ignored the already established ones.

“We are not against the establishment of new universities. But the government should focus attention on resolving the problems of the old universities,” said Dr Fazle Nasir. Currently, some 28 universities are functioning in the province and 15 of them have financial constraints.

The situation at the oldest universities among them – University of Peshawar, Agriculture University, Peshawar and Gomal University, Dera Ismail Khan – is the most serious where the management has urged the HED and the provincial government to announce a bailout package for them.

The HEC gave the loan to some of these universities for meeting the emergency expenditure. However, no concrete package could be announced for any of the institutions neither by the commission nor the provincial government so far.