The finance committee of Jadavpur University held an emergency meeting to clear payments of around Rs 10 lakh that were due to workers and could not be paid because of the absence of a vice-chancellor.
The VC chairs meetings of the finance committee.
Last week, the university decided to hold an emergency meeting of the finance committee under the chairmanship of the pro-VC to break the impasse as the workers began an agitation.
The university has decided to inform the education department about the step taken to deal with an exigency in the absence of an officiating VC.
“The committee met today to clear the pending dues to the workers. Now, the amount can be disbursed,” said registrar Snehamanju Basu, who attended the meeting.
“We will inform the state government about our step,” Basu said.
The payments had not been made because the officiating VC has not been attending office or signing any files.
“We had to take an extraordinary step after the workers held a protest on January 9 on the campus. If we don’t pay, the mess staff working in the hostels, the housekeeping staff, the security staff, the liftmen and others will stop working. So, the finance committee decided to clear the dues payable to the agencies,” said a JU official.
Buddhadeb Sau, a JU professor of mathematics, had been removed from the post of officiating VC by the governor on December 23. Sau has since been told twice by the higher education department that he should continue as VC but he has refused to do so.
Sau has cited the “contradictory orders” from the chancellor and the higher education department for his stand.
“Any bill up to Rs 75,000 can be cleared by the finance officer straightaway on his own. But as the dues to the outsourced agencies was beyond Rs 75,000, the emergency meeting of the finance committee was held,” an official told Metro.
More decisions are pending. “We are still not sure how we will arrange funds for the renovation and repair of the campus ahead of the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) and National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) visits, which are just months away. Either a VC has to come to the office to give the necessary approvals or the government has to advise us whether we can approve such heavy expenses skirting the VC through the finance committee,” the official said.