Peshawar varsity staff set deadline for acceptance of demands

PESHAWAR: The combined general body of the teaching and non-teaching staff of the University of Peshawar on Thursday set a three-day deadline for the university administration to accept their demands or else they would go on complete strike.

The general body, attended by a number of faculty members, administrative officers, Class-III and Class-IV employees of the university, was held on the main lawn outside the vice-chancellor’s secretariat of the university.

Presided over by the president of Peshawar University Teachers Association (PUTA), Dr Fazle Nasir, the meeting was also addressed by the president of administrative officers association, Dr Fazal Sher, president Class-III association, Muzakir Shah, and general secretary of the Class-IV association, Alamzeb.

The speakers expressed serious concern over the indifferent attitude of the university administration towards their problems.

They said they would give another three days deadline for the university to accept their demands otherwise they would go on strike from next Monday.

Talking to The News, Dr Fazle Nasir said that all the employees of the university were facing severe problems, which needed immediate attention of the university administration as well as the government. He said that they had taken up the issues with both the administration and the government time and again, but to no avail.

Dr Fazle Nasir said that they had submitted a formal list of demands to the university administration on April 2 and asked them that if no action was taken to resolve their problems, they would hold a combined general body meeting wherein the future line of action would be decided.

“Now that the vice-chancellor was not present in the university due to his ex-Pakistan leave, we give another three days’ time to the university to consider our demands,” he said. The major demands of the employees are the regularization of the contract employees. Currently, 640 class three and class four employees are working on contract basis in the university.

A number of teachers have also been serving against tenure track system under fixed pay, who wants regularisation under the BPS system.

The families of deceased officers, teachers and other employees of the university are also facing problems due to non-issuance of salaries and not giving jobs to their offspring. Non-issuance of MPhil, PhD allowance to university employees is another issue.

One serious issue, according to Dr Fazle Nasir, was the ban on recruitment which was lifted only a day before their general body. He said that currently important positions like registrar, controller and treasurer of the university have been filled out on an acting basis.

He said that the vice-chancellor would hopefully return from his foreign visit by Monday. “So we will wait till his arrival and we hope he would look into our problems positively and solve them,” he said.