In a bid to replenish its dwindling coffers, the University of Mumbai has turned to its affiliated colleges, asking them to furnish details of affiliation fees they have paid over a period of 10 years
In a bid to replenish its dwindling coffers, the University of Mumbai has turned to its affiliated colleges, asking them to furnish details of affiliation fees they have paid over a period of 10 years. According to sources, the university stands to recover around Rs 300 crore in arrears that has not been paid by the colleges till now.
Earlier in the month, the university had written to the higher education ministry requesting payment of around Rs 150-200 crore that it had paid as salaries to teaching and non-teaching staff in lieu of the ministry paying only 75 per cent of the salary of the said employees. The letter from the university had been prompted by the fact that its general fund had been depleted and there were no funds to pay the July salaries of the employees unless the government remitted the pending amounts. However, the ministry said it would remit the remaining 25 per cent of the salaries only if the university submitted service record details of the employees.
Due to a question mark on the appointment of some of the employees, the university has not been complying with the ministry order, as it will jeopardise the jobs of the said employees. Hence, rather than being responsible for the unsavoury task of exposing employees, the university decided to look for other avenues to replenish its coffers.
Earlier in the week, the university issued a circular to affiliated colleges asking them to submit details of affiliation fees paid by them for the 10-year period. When asked why such details were not available with the university, officials said its records were incomplete and hence wanted the colleges to submit details so that the pending figures could be ascertained for each college.
A source said that based on rough estimates, the arrears could run into around Rs 300 crore. The receipt of full or part of the amount would help the university tide over the issue of shortage of funds. The source added that as a number of colleges came up in the past decade and a half, a conservative figure of Rs 300 crore was being quoted. “If the university digs deeper, many older colleges would also be found to be guilty of not paying affiliation fees for more than 25 years” said the source.
