Syndicate finally wakes up to poor construction of PU campus buildings

CHANDIGARH: Five months after a PU committee found serious lapses in the construction of six buildings on the university campus, the syndicate will finally take up the inquiry report on quality of construction over the last 16 years submitted by the committee.

The committee, under the chairmanship of Prof Rabinder Nath Sharma, has recommended that those involved in the act should be identified and action should be taken against them.

According to the report, the construction quality of the UIAMS, basic medical sciences -I and II, international hostel, Rajiv Gandhi College Bhawan, Dr HSJ Institute of Dental Sciences and Guru Teg Bahadur Bhawan is sub-standard.


The committee in its report has recommended that the syndicate should identify people responsible for poor quality of construction in these six buildings and take action accordingly. Moreover, the committee has recommended that the lapses in the construction of these buildings should not be repeated.

"Those responsible for these serious lapses pointed out in the construction should have been dealt with after we submitted the report. However, the report was not taken up by the syndicate and budget was allotted for repair of these buildings. Repair work in some of these buildings is going on which has brushed the wrongdoings of certain people under the carpet. It has been more than five months since the report was submitted," said Prof Rabinder Nath Sharma.

The reports submitted by the committee in June 2018 was to be tabled during the syndicate meeting scheduled for July 7 when Prof Arun Kumar Grover was the vice-chancellor and his term was about to end. The syndicate members had not attended the meeting in their protest against the governance reforms that the former VC wanted to introduce. The report, hence, could not be taken up by the syndicate.

A few senators had raised the concerns on quality of construction in the university projects last year and had suggested that an inspection should be done to determine the quality of construction that took place in the university in the last five years.

On this, former PU VC Grover had formed a committee to prepare a report on the construction that took place on the university campus in the last 16 years.

A nine-member committee that first met on March 21, 2017, included former dean of university instructions (DUI) A K Bhandari, professors Ajay Ranga, Manoj Sharma, Rabinder Nath Sharma, Suveera Gill, Sanjeev Sharma and Rajnish Wattas, and PEC University of Technology director's nominee Tripta Goyal. The main committee then formed another three-member panel of professors Rabinder Nath Sharma, Sanjeev Sharma and Manoj Sharma to visit these buildings and inspect the projects already completed.