The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Chandigarh Stories

EDUCATION

Punjab Education Dept re-employs retired employee
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 10
The Punjab Education Department has re-employed a retired employee of the department on contract basis. He is being paid from the sports development fund of the department.

A former PA to the Director, Public Instructions (Colleges), Punjab, who retired on April 30, 2006, has been re-employed by the Deputy Director handling the fund on the plea that his services were too valuable to be replaced.

He would now be handling the work of the Punjab Sports College Development Fund, which, according to sources, was being handled without any additional cost by an accountant of the department.

The salary of this retired person would be drawn from the fund itself, which is collected from various colleges of the state exclusively for improvement of infrastructure and sports facilities.

The Deputy Director, Sports Fund, Mr Dinesh Gupta, had initiated the move. Justifying the re-employment, he said the salary of the employee would be drawn from the 10 per cent of the sports fund which is kept aside for departmental use.

Sources, however, reiterated that there was no such 10 per cent usage assigned for the department. Mr Gupta also pointed out that the appointment of the PA for the fund work had been approved by Mr M.P. Singh, former Secretary (Higher Education), and Ms Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, minister.

In his note, Mr Gupta has pointed out that the PA was a highly knowledgeable person, hardworking and honest and would be able to discharge his duties with a lot of efficiency.

He said there was a lot of work that this person would be doing since there was no one to take care of the sports fund. He said this person would also discharge his earlier duties of the PA to the DPI (Colleges).

However, sources said the department was promoting another person from within the cadre as the PA to the DPI and this would be an additional post.

Sources said the work of the sports fund was being looked after by an accountant of the department since 1993. He was paid Rs 2,000 per month from the fund for discharging these duties. However, the post was not filled after 2003 and the office staff itself took care of the work.

There was no requirement of a person specially for this post, he added. “In case, the old post has to be revived, an expenditure of Rs 2,000 per month should suffice,” sources said.

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