PESHAWAR: The employees of University of Peshawar, the biggest and oldest public sector varsity of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, are set to launch protest today (Monday) over nonpayment of salaries and pensions for months of June and July.

“We will stage sit-in outside the office of vice-chancellor,” Peshawar University Teachers Association (Puta) president Prof Zakirullah told Dawn. He added that protesting employees would not allow the administration staff to work.

The decision of launching the protest has been taken by Joint Action Committee, a joint body of teachers, administrative officers and low-ranking employees of the university.

Prof Zakir said that their protest would be extended to other departments of the university and its nature would be changed. “The protest will include halting by force checking of papers in the examination section and other administrative and academic activities if our salaries are not released after three days’ sit-in,” he added.

Puta president says protesters will not allow administration staff to work

He said that the administration of funds-starved UoP was unable to pay salaries and pension to employees for the month of June. He said that the administration only paid half of the salary to its employees on July 23 but it couldn’t pay pension to former employees as it had no money.

“Similarly, employees have no hope to get their outstanding pensions and salaries of June and July. The provincial government has ignored the historic university of the province, which has no funds to pay salaries to its employees,” he said.

Prof Zakir said that the university required Rs220 million to pay monthly salaries to its employees and Rs140 million for monthly pensions to its former employees.

He said that Sindh government allocated Rs42 billion funds for financial stability of its universities, Punjab government allocated Rs35 billion for universities and Balochistan government allocated Rs8 billion for the purpose.

However, the KP government allocated only Rs10 billion for universities and out of which Rs2 billion was meant for construction of buildings in Agriculture University Dera Ismail Khan and Agriculture University Swat, Rs3.6 billion in the head of pension while only Rs4.4 billion left for other activities of 34 universities in the province.

A senior faculty member of UoP told Dawn that their protest would continue from 8am till 1pm to press the administration and provincial government to immediately release their salaries and pensions.

“Nonpayment of salaries and pensions has created multiple financial problems to university employees. Employees mainly depend on their salaries and pensions as they have no other sources of income,” he said.

He said that UoP employees had not paid electricity bills for the last two months and Pesco officials warned them of disconnecting power supply to their houses if monthly bills were not paid.

Similarly, the administration of the schools where their children were enrolled was also asking them to pay fee of their children but employees were unable to pay it as they had no money, he said.

The senior teacher said that most of UoP employees were living in rented houses outside the university and had not paid rent of their houses.

About the reason for living in rented houses, he said that there were only 235 houses for university employees and half of them were in dilapidated conditions and not fit for living as the university administration was not spending funds for repair.

UoP Vice-chancellor Prof Johar Ali was not available for comments.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2025