Non-fulfilment of demands: PUTA members stage protest outside V-C office

Teachers, under the banner of the Punjabi University Teachers’ Association (PUTA), staged a protest outside the vice-chancellor’s office for over three hours on the varsity campus on Wednesday.

The teachers were protesting against the university management over non-fulfilment of their demands including revision of pay scale of the promoted teachers, clearance of pending arrears, special financial package from the state government, and timely payment of salaries to the teaching faculty.

PUTA president Jaswinder Singh Brar said that besides members of the PUTA executive body, teachers from different departments joined the protest held to raise genuine demands of the varsity faculty members.

“The lackadaisical attitude of the university administration, in dealing with our pending demands, has forced teachers to hold protests. Despite repeated meetings with the university management, the officials have failed to resolve our issues,” Brar said.

He added that PUTA is going to intensify its protest in the coming days.

PUTA secretary Gurnam Singh Virk said that the authorities are delaying implementation of teachers’ demands and other important issues.

He added that PUTA is demanding higher pay scale for promoted teachers of different departments, this increased pay should be implemented from the day they are promoted, and the pending arrears to be released soon including instalment of dearness allowance (DA) for 2013-2014.

“We are also demanding that there should not be any unwarranted delay in depositing the amount deducted as National Pension scheme (NPS) contribution to our respective general provident fund (GPF) accounts between January 1, 2004 to July 8, 2012,” Virk said.

He added that it has been demanded that the university administration should pursue the issue of poor financial status of the university with the state government and demand special financial package at the earliest.