Ousted Punjab University employees protest outside VC office

Vow to continue protest outside university mosque after Friday prayers

LAHORE: With the start of the month of Ramazan, the Punjab University employees whose contracts were not renewed and who are now without jobs once again protested outside the vice chancellor's office on Thursday.

The protesters were of the view that they were victims of administration's policies of ad-hocism. However, they said that those who were responsible did not face any repercussion and how they [employees appointed on contracts] were facing the consequences.

As many as 600 jobs are at stake at the Punjab University, where after a letter by the Punjab Higher Education Department (HED) to all vice chancellors of public universities, the Punjab University administration under former vice-chancellor Dr Zakria Zakar moved to stop the renewal of contracts of non-teaching staff.

The letter by the HED had said that appointing contractual staff without proper advertisement was a clear violation of rules and regulations. The department had given a month's deadline, starting in March, asking the VCs to submit a confirmatory report within that time frame. The letter also asked the VCs to formulate checklists and implement them at every step of the recruitment process. It asked that finance authorities be created at the varsities to issue pay slips with a copy of the newspaper advertisement. In the case of a violation, the treasurer or director will be held responsible.



It also asked all public sector universities to make the control mechanism an integral part of the appointments. It added that the universities must carry out an internal audit for existing payroll data and identify such cases, reporting them to the HED.

Following the letter, the Punjab University administration issued a letter to deans and heads of departments directing them that no contract of the non-teaching staff would be renewed. As of May, contracts of a total of 49 employees, from basic pay scale (BPS) 16 and 17, have not been renewed. By the end of June, as many as 600 employees in different basic pay scales could also lose their jobs.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Syed Shakeel Hassan, one of the protesters, who lost his job because of the orders, said that he and his family were affected because of the decision. "It was not my fault that the varsity administration advertised the posts but did not make permanent appointments."

Hassan said that now he and his family were being victimised because of the orders. He said that many of the people affected were highly qualified and had been serving the university for more than a decade.

The protesters questioned why the administration failed to regularise the contract employees and asked the Supreme Court of Pakistan to intervene and an inquiry should be carried out as to why all of a sudden this step was taken. They vowed to continue the protest (today) outside the Punjab University mosque after the Friday prayers.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 18^th, 2018.