Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Monday stressed that Haryana would not receive a share in Panjab University. The Chief Minister asserted that the apex educational institute in Chandigarh is part of the rich emotional, cultural, and literary legacy of the state.
“Neither will any college of Haryana be given affiliation from the University nor will any attempt of Haryana for back door entry in the senate of the university be allowed,” Mann said on Monday. The Chief Minister bemoaned the regular attempts being made to change the status of the university. However, he said that the Punjab government will not allow any such move in the larger interests of the students. Nearly 175 colleges in Panjab are affiliated with the state’s premier university and generations of Punjab are “emotionally attached to it,” Chief Minister Mann said, adding that the University caters only to the state of Punjab and its capital Chandigarh.
Citing the University’s history and its ethnic and socio-cultural roots, Mann said that it is important to preserve its present legal and administrative status. The CM has remained firm that the territorial jurisdiction of Panjab University lies primarily in the state of Punjab and Union Territory Chandigarh. The University was initially based in Lahore, the then capital of Punjab and shifted first to Hoshiarpur and then to Chandigarh the present capital, following the partition. During the reorganisation of the State of Punjab in 1966, the CM said, Panjab University was declared as an ‘Inter-State Body Corporate’ under section 72(1) of the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966, enacted by the Parliament. As per this Act, the maintenance deficit grants to the University were to be shared and paid by the states concerned, meaning Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, and UT Administration of Chandigarh in the ratio of 20:20:20:40, respectively. However, he added that in 1970 the then Chief Minister of Haryana, Bansi Lal, voluntarily pulled out the state’s share from the university and called back its members of the university senate in 1973. Since then, Mann said, Punjab and Chandigarh have borne the financial responsibility of paying maintenance to the University in a 40-60 ratio. The Chief Minister said that despite the increased financial burden caused by the withdrawal of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh and the creation of new universities in the state, Punjab has continued to support Panjab University. He also said that the interests of the state are “not saleable” for anyone to offer money and purchase it and that the Haryana government’s proposal to bear the share of grants in university was “unacceptable and unwarranted.”
Mann said that the Haryana government had, in an earlier letter to Vice Chancellors in Haryana, expressed its inability to give funds to universities. He said while the universities were asked to manage their own resources, Haryana is “too eager” for a share in Panjab University. “How can any state which is not able to manage its own universities fund a university of the stature of Panjab University until and unless some higher agency was not funding it in a clandestine manner?” Mann said. A resolution passed in the Punjab assembly in June last year retains the original status of PU to prevent any sort of intrusion in the senate of the university, the Chief Minister said. “Haryana is free to make its university anywhere, but they will not be allowed any share in Panjab University.” The Chief Minister also slammed Akali and Congress leaders for “backstabbing” the state and its people. He said that the then Chief Minister, the late Parkash Singh Badal, wrote a letter to erstwhile Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in August 2008 seeking central status for Panjab University and that the Akali Dal government had issued a NOC to the Union government for converting Panjab University into a central institute. He said that granting NOC for the conversion was a treacherous move aimed at weakening the claim of the state over the university.