Mango group wins 11 of 15 seats in PAU non-teaching staff poll

Ludhiana: The Mango Group has won as many as 11 posts out of 15 of the PAU Employees Union election, the result of which was declared on Thursday afternoon. Members from the rival Cycle group have won the remaining four posts.
There was a huge rush at the examination hall of the College of Agriculture where the votes were being counted. As many as 946 non-teaching staff cast their votes on Wednesday, making the total voting percentage at 97.33. Election Committee chairman Balvir Singh said, “483 votes were cast in favour of the Mango group president, and 458 for the Cycle group. Thus, the Mango group won the president’s post with a margin of 25 votes.”
President Baldev Singh Walia from the Mango group works as a lab technician in the Department of Processing and Food Engineering, College of Agriculture Engineering. Senior vice-president in the open category, Lal Bahadur Yadav, won by a margin of just 4 votes. He is working as a senior assistant in the Department of Director of Research, while in the reserved category, Gurpreet Singh Dhillon — junior engineer in the Department of Civil Engineering — won by a margin of 8 votes. General secretary Manmohan Singh — plant supervisor in the Department of Food Science — won by 25 votes, and treasurer Daljit Singh — senior assistant in the Department of Plant Breeding — won by 11 votes.
Secretary I Guriqbal Singh Sohi (junior assistant at the registrar’s office) won by 16 votes, and secretary II Dharminder Singh (lab attendant in the Department of Agronomy) won by 51 votes. Joint treasurer I Mohan Lal Sharma (plumber with executive engineer Electrical) won by only 4 votes, and Joint treasurer II Baljinder Singh (assistant store officer in the comptroller office) won by 45 votes. Organising secretary in Open category Harminder Singh (senior assistant in the Estate Office) won by 24 votes, and in Reserve category, Baljinder Singh (tractor driver in Department of Agronomy) won by 54.
In the Cycle group, propaganda secretary in the Open category Munish Kumar (senior assistant at Director of Research) won by a margin of 15 votes, and in Reserve category Satvinder Singh (senior research investigator in the Department of Economics and Sociology) won with a margin of just 3 votes. Vice-president in the Open category (senior assistant at Directorate of Extension Education) Gurpreet Singh won with a margin of 21 votes, and in the Reserve category Bikkar Singh Kalsi (store purchase technical assistant in the Department of Store Purchase) won by 65 votes.
President Walia from the Mango group told TOI, “I will continue to work for employees and their demands. We will implement the old pension scheme for employees recruited before July 9, 2012, increase the number of posts of agriculture field officer (AFO), reduce the experience time for promotion to AFO, increase grade pay of library attendants and meteorology attendants from Rs1,900 to Rs2,400, settle cases of anomaly, get vacant posts of store-keepers and all promotional posts filled, and finally get the contract staff regularised.”