NEW DELHI: After a day-long hunger strike, the newly elected Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) on Wednesday alleged that the varsity was being “imploded from within by the administration”, which was claiming expenses that differ from the financial reports available.
The association alleged that the average academic expenditure as a proportion of total expenditure was down by nearly 2 per cent, from 8.5 per cent (2012-13 to 2015-16) to 6.65 per cent (last two years).
It said that the JNU library had received an annual allocation of just Rs 1.7 crore, and most journals subscriptions will have to be discontinued as a result. “With e-journals and databases provided by the UGC to JNU and other universities being discontinued from December 2018, this means that the JNU library will be virtually shut down, and this is because of the decisions of the administration alone,” the association alleged in a statement.
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Last week, the varsity had said that there was “no provision” for a means-cum-merit (MCM) fund in the annual grants received by it, after students alleged that such scholarships were not being disbursed by the administration. Citing the financial report, the JNUTA alleged: “A 15 per cent increase in receipts from academic fees in the last two years has been observed. Despite a Rs 10.99 crore income from academic fees alone, MCM fellowships are not being disbursed.”
Security expenses, however, have gone up, it said. “The increase in the absolute amount spent extra on security is Rs 6,33,99,965 on an average in the last two years, which is 6.7 times more than the amount reduced for library books and e-journals,” it added.
The JNUTA alleged that a major expense the university will record will be that for the JNU entrance exam, whose expenditure “mysteriously went up from Rs 3.75 crore in 2016-17 to Rs 6.04 crore in 2017-18.”
“It is this unacademic thinking on the part of JNU administration and the diversion of funds from teaching and research to other purposes that is really the crisis and the story of JNU. Teaching and learning in JNU are at stake, along with access to education. On behalf of the JNUTA, we are committed to fighting this till the last and not let the JNU administration destroy a prestigious university created through a Parliament Act,” JUTA president Atul Sood said.