University of Pune asks Pune Municipal Corporation to spare them fromcensus duty, civic body threatens to take them to court
University of Pune asks Pune Municipal Corporation to spare them fromcensus duty, civic body threatens to take them to courtu00a0
The University of Pune (UoP) is on a warpath with the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) over the issue of engaging its staffers for census work that will start shortly.
The UoP which is facing nearly a 30 per cent staff crunch had written to the PMC that they be spared the census exercise, as work at the varsity was already being delayed owing to shortage of staff.
However, PMC authorities are in no mood to relent and have rejected the plea stating that they would take the varsity to court, if not obliged.
M L Jadhav, registrar of UoP, said,u00a0 "The census exercise begins at the same time when we are swamped with work at the university. We would have to conduct exams at that time, declare the results subsequently and then begin work for admissions for the next academic year," he said. Jadhav said many staffers were engaged in preparing the annual report and the budget, which required extensive research.
Besides, routine work like accreditation of colleges was also going on.
"There are 1,235 sanctioned posts at the university but almost 400 were still vacant. The courts have issued an order to to fill up these posts and though the process is on, it is an extensive exercise, "said Jadhav.
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"Already we are struggling to meet deadlines and if we send our staff for census duty, then it is natural that our routine work will suffer. Even if the results are delayed by two days, we are pulled up by our seniors. How do we deal with this situation?"said Jadhav. "They are asking for at least 180 people for census work, which is impossible. What we can do is send people in batches for half a day or alternate days, but still we cannot match the numbers the PMC is asking for."
Besides staffers, students are also worried. Last year, when staffers were sent on census duty, salaries of employees had been delayed by nearly two months. Also some teaching departments, whose clerks had been engaged in census work, were late in submitting their project work and evaluated papers because of which results were delayed too.
