PESHAWAR: The University of Peshawar’s syndicate has deferred all cases of upgradation, promotion and appointments citing the ‘worst financial crisis’ in its history as the reason.

It has also approved drastic reduction in different allowances of employees to save Rs300 million annually, sources told Dawn.

“There will be no upgradation, promotion and appointment of employees until the university’s financial condition stabilises,” a senior staff member revealed.

He said the syndicate, which met recently with the vice-chancellor in the chair, was to discuss the upgradation of 34 employees, promotion of 11 employees and 32 appointments but as the university was so strapped for cash it deferred decision on them until the worst financial crisis in its history was over.

The sources said the university would save Rs128 million through the recent termination of 600 low-grade employees, Rs110 million by the shifting of medical allowance from the federal government’s rate to the provincial government’s, Rs50 million under the head of house subsidy and requisition, and Rs12 million under the category of the school fee of the employees’ children.

Reduced allowances for employees also approved in syndicate meeting

They said the employees of the university used to receive medical allowance up to 35 per cent of the basic pay, which was capped at Rs8,320 under the federal government rate, costing the university Rs163 million per annum.

The sources said currently, the university would pay that allowance at the provincial government rate bringing the expenditure down to Rs51 million.

They said under the federal government rate, the housing budget stood at Rs197 million, which would reduce to Rs146 million under the provincial government rate.

The sources said nominal fee were paid by the university’s employees for their children enrolled in the university and its constituent schools, including 10 per cent of the total fee paid by the employees in Grade 17 and above and Rs100 per month by below Grade 17 and Rs50 per month by Class-IV employees.

They said in future, the university would make different slabs for the fee of the teachers’ children according to their pay grades to generate an additional revenue of Rs12 million.

The sources said the syndicate had also recommended to the university’s administration to place several other proposals before the finance and planning committee of the university for saving another Rs100 million.

They said the proposals to be taken before the finance and planning committee included rationalisation of allowances, commercialisation of pathology lab, outsourcing of non-core tasks, including security, janitorial services, merger of related departments, and constitution of board of governors for constituent schools of the university.

The sources said until June 30, 2020, the varsity faced a funding shortage of Rs342 million and the belt-tightening would save the university around Rs400 million.

They, however, said the issue university faced was pension expenditure, which had jumped to Rs1 billion during the last few years.

The sources said they had requested both provincial and federal governments to contribute a hefty amount of money to pension funds so that it could be turned into self-sustaining fund paying the Rs1 billion annual pension liability.

In a formal communication last month, the higher education department had issued government universities the austerity guidelines, including the delinking if pay scale from the basic pay scale and introduction of the university pay scale.

It said the pension schemes having no pension liability for the university should be implemented for all future recruitment and the universities should make necessary amendments to their relevant statutes for the purpose.

The department also issued directions to the universities regarding a tangible reduction in house subsidy, medical allowance and other perks and privileges to the provincial rates from the federal rates.

Published in Dawn, February 13th, 2021