The administration of the University of Peshawar has announced that it will not able to “disburse full salary to its employees for the month January” due to the financial constraints.
In a notification issued by the registrar on Jan 21, the university said it will only be able to pay “basic and personal pay” due to lack of funds.
The Current confirmed the veracity of the notification from the Peshawar University’s registrar office. A news report said that the university will pay its employees only 30 per cent of the salaries due to the constraints.
The registrar was quoted as saying that the provincial government had approved Rs250 million for the university, but Rs150 million only was released and the remaining funds were linked with the introduction of some reforms.
“We have requested the government for more money, but they haven’t responded to our request yet,” the registrar was quoted as saying.
Earlier this month, the Higher Education, Archives and Libraries Department of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) had issued a notification to the public sector universities directing to implement “no pension liability” for all future initial recruitments in addition to other strict measures to overcome the rising deficit.
The department had also directed delinking of the pay scales from the basic pay scale scheme and university pay scale, while further stating in a notification that government grant and other resources meant for higher education shall not be expended on meeting the shortfall of the schools run by the universities.
“These schools should have separate Board of Governors (BoG),” it had read.
Furthermore, house subsidy and requisition should be paid to the employees on the provincial government rates. All medical allowances in their current form had been abolished and shall be paid at the provincial government rates, it had said, adding that the maintenance cost, including repair, security and other facilities’ costs, should be fully recovered from the employees provided with accommodation by the universities.
“The universities will be assisted in the process of exploring new avenues of financial resources, including renting out academic blocks to other institutions,” the notification had said.
