Ludhiana: PAUTA protests at Kisan Mela inauguration

The Punjab Agricultural University Teachers’ Association (PAUTA) protested at the inauguration of the Kisan Mela on Friday, forcing the chief guest Agriculture Minister Gurpreet Singh Khudian to leave the stage and go down to the agitated professors.
As the university officials started with the formal ceremony, the teachers approached the arena armed with placards calling for their demand, shouting slogans against the government.
Taking note of the protest, Khudian, minister for agriculture and farmers welfare, approached the agitating teachers. The PAUTA was assured by the minister, after accepting the memorandum, that he will hold a meeting with the association along with university administration in the coming days. The minister assured to resolve the issue amicably and at the earliest.
However, PAUTA has decided to continue the indefinite protest until the assurance is formalised as a notification by the state government.
The PAUTA delegation plans to meet the minister in the coming days.
The teachers, who have been on protest for 25 days now, have been demanding the revision of their allowances and gratuity as per University Grants Commission (UGC) 7th pay commission recommendations, payment of arrears from January 2016 till July 2023 when the recommendations were implemented (just for basic pay), pay parity for the faculty hired after 2016, old pension scheme for those hired before July 2012, revision of pension of those who retire before 2016 and payment of pending dearness allowance installments.
While for most of the universities in the rest of the country, the recommendations were put into practice in 2018, in Punjab the state government kept putting it off till October 2022, when they were adopted by varsities under the higher education department: Guru Nanak Dev University (Amritsar), Panjab University (Chandigarh), and Punjabi University (Patiala). However, PAU and GADVASU, which fall under the agriculture and veterinary department, respectively, were asked to make their cases separately.
In April 2023, the recommendations were accepted for PAU, but only partially. The basic salary of the teaching staff was revised but the allowances remained the same.