Higher Education sector is ignored by the Finance Minister -Mohindru
The Punjab Budget dashed all the hopes of the staff working in Punjabi University, neighbourhood campuses and constituent colleges situated in all most all of the Malwa belt.
It is very much appreciated that the Punjab Government allocated Rs 13,092 crore to education sector highest ever allocation for education this time whereas agriculture sector has been given Rs 12526 crore.
The Punjab government increased the outlays for health and education sectors to Rs 4675 crore but there was no specific mention of budget allocated to higher education sector at all. On the other hand the counterpart Haryana Government set aside Rs 2936 crore for higher education which is whopping 41.39% increase over the previous year.
Dr Pankaj Mohindru, Human Rights Chairman of Punjab Congress demanded Rs 500 crore package earlier also from his party which is running the state government to bail out the university from financial crunch. However, the university did not get any special grant in this budget like it had received in the previous fiscal, when had received Rs 50 crore.
The higher administration of the University anticipated that there would be an ample grant in this budget to bail out the varsity from the ongoing financial crisis. Rajesh Panjola, Syndicate member of the University appointed by the Punjab government also declared in advance that Rs 100 crore special grants has been allocated in this budget.
A significant share of the education budget will go for infrastructure upgrade but Punjabi University, Patiala was ignored and has been allocated only Rs 15 Crore for the construction of a new girl’s hostel.
“This is the second university in the world to be named after a language, the first being Hebrew University of Israel. Its vision is to establish and incorporate a University for the advancement of Punjabi studies and development of Punjabi language as a medium of instruction”, said Mohindru. It is observed that the young poor students of malwa belt are fleeing to developed countries for their education and employment due to better prospects and this has resulted a huge shortfall in admissions and subsequent revenue of Punjabi University. The staff is facing the actual heat as University is now not able to pay the monthly salaries to is employees timely and this has adversely affected the morale of the faculty and subtly of their students.
The writer-Dr. Pankaj Mohindru (Columnist) is a Professor in Punjabi University, Patiala and is an expert in the field of Human Resource Management and Artificial Intelligence and is guiding research in this field.
(The views expressed are personnel)
February,29,2020
