YS.Rana:
Chandigarh, April 27, 2020: A delegation of Joint Action Committee (JAC) representing various schools, Colleges and Universities today met Higher Education Minister, Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa. Rahul Bhandari, Secretary, Higher Education was also present during the meeting.
Chancellor, Chandigarh University, S. Satnam Singh Sandhu along with other JAC directors including S. Jagjit Singh, President, B.Ed Federation; Dr. Anshu Kataria, President, Punjab Unaided Colleges Association (PUCA); S. Nirmal Singh, ETT Federation were also present during the meeting.
S. Satnam Singh Sandhu appreciated the timely steps taken by the Punjab Government to control the spread of Covid-19 in Punjab to a great extent. He said that the students, staff and Management of all
the Colleges and Universities of Punjab are with the Govt to help in this situation. The education institutions of Punjab are regularly helping the needy and deprived people in getting the food and
medicines.
S. Jagjit Singh, President, B.Ed Federation said that every school and college has paid 10-20 Lac as an endowment fund/bank guarantee/security/FDR to the board, affiliating university, central
council before starting the institutions. Just, for example, one B.Ed college running ETT and M.Ed course pay 12 Lac each course to National Council for Teacher Education, New Delhi (NCTE) and 20 Lac to Punjabi University, Patiala. Thus a small college pays 56 Lac to the University and Council as security. Now, it is the right time that the government should not keep these reserve funds with them which were actually given by the colleges only. Such reserve funds should be
released back to the colleges immediately to pay the salaries.
Dr. Anshu Kataria said that on the one hand, the government is not paying around 1850 crore of Post Matric Scholarship since last 3-4 years, while on the other hand Government affiliating Universities including IKG-PTU, Jalandhar, MRS-PTU, Bathinda, Punjabi University, Patiala,
Panjab University, Chandigarh, GNDU, Amritsar are taking affiliation fees, counseling fees, registration fees, student-related fees, examination fees, practical charges, etc regularly from the colleges.
S. Nirmal Singh, ETT Federation said that for the last two years they are following up with the Govt at various levels to implement the fee the structure which was fixed by the Govt itself for the Unaided Colleges i.e 68,370/- per year. But the Govt finally reimbursed only Rs 15,600
per year to the B.Ed colleges and for ETT colleges, Govt fees is Rs 40,000/- while reimbursement is only of Rs 8350/- to the Unaided colleges.
Bajwa while suggesting the directors said that due to Coronavirus, no student should get deprived of education. Teaching should go smoothly via online teaching methods.