Teachers accuse JNU admin of ‘squandering’ varsity resources

NEWDELHI: The Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) on Wednesday alleged that the administration is “squandering away” university resources over the last two years. The teachers’ body also claimed that the university administration is “spread(ing) lies” about promoting research and academic environment on campus.

Alleging the budget for fieldwork, seminars and lab functioning has been a “drastically cut down”, JNUTA president Atul Sood claimed: “Between 2016-17 and 2017-18, there is an alarming reduction in expenditure on resources crucial for teaching, learning and research. The reduction in the budget for field work, seminars/workshops, lab functioning is recorded at 34%, 45% and 13%, respectively.”

The teachers’ body claimed they have found that the administration has created “new expenditures”. “In 2016-17, more that ₹13 lakh was spent on e-governance, but in 2017-18, the expenditure increased to over ₹36 lakh. Similarly, expenditure on conducting examination is increased by 60 % between 2016-17 and 2017-18,” JNUTA office-bearers said, adding that the administration has also increased security expense by 89% in the last two years.

Despite several attempts, JNU vice-chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar and Rector Chintamani Mahapatra did not respond for calls and messages sent by HT.

JNU registrar Pramod Kumar said, “I have not received their note as of now. I will go through it before commenting on the issue.”