Regulatory Commission directs Bahra University to clear pending dues by 30 Sept; Chairman, Registrar and Finance Officer to present before Commission
Shimla: Financial crunch due to meager resources (mainly due to low admissions) is a major excuse of private universities to withheld salaries of its staff. But what will you say when a University has registered an annual profit of Rs 1.72 crore and despite that it has not paid salaries of its employees of last nine months?
This eye-opening revelation has come to fore recently when Waknaghat in Solan based Bahra University hasn’t paid to its employees since January 2020 even after registering a profit of Rs. 1.72 crore in the Financial Year 2019-20. University, in its affidavit, submitted in HP Private Regulatory Commission, has admitted it.
Due to a non-payment of salaries, few staff members of the university had approached regulatory commission and following that Regulatory Commission had asked the University to submit balance sheet, which revealed that the University had registered profit of Rs. 1.72 crore in the Financial Year 2019-20.
The HP Private Regulatory Commission has ordered the Bahra University to clear pending dues by 30 September. Commission has also directed University’s Registrar to submit compliance report by 6 October.
The Commission has further directed Chairman of Trustee, Registrar and Finance Office to appear personally before the Commission on the next date of hearing. University management is also directed to submit an affidavit quoting that all salaries have been cleared by the university.
Irregular salary isn’t new in the Bahra University as since 2017, University management had delayed paying it on one pretext or another. Staff had approached various sources since 2017 to intervene and help. They have sought intervention from the Education Minister, select MLAs, As and had also approached HP Private Institution Regulatory Commission, but there has been no respite till now.
Students of the University have also not got any better treatment. Following the non-payment of the salaries, staff of the University had stopped taking classes from November 2019 and only resumed in June 2020.
