Pokhara: Protest started by the CPN-Maoist affiliated students and the Pokhara University (PU) Employees’ Association over ‘political appointment’ of 13 new employees by the varsity’s executive council has crippled the academic and administrative activities.

PU is shut for the past 23 days; several rounds of unsuccessful talks were held between the agitating side and the PU management during this period. Owing to the ongoing strike, the examination of Bachelor’s and Master’s levels set to begin from Sunday has been put off indefinitely. Result publication of the past exams has also been delayed as all administrative and academic works are in a state of torpor. There are around 25,000 students under the PU affiliated colleges.

Blaming that the PU executive council appointed new staffers on the basis of recommendation made by the UCPN (Maoist), the Nepali Congress (NC) and the CPN-UML, the agitating side has demanded the council to cancel the hiring.

“We strongly oppose the process that was employed to appoint the new employees in the university,” said Kishor Subedi, central member of the CPN-Maoist aligned student body.

He demanded that the university should either cancel the appointments or relieve the incumbent vice chancellor and the registrar from their posts. A source at the university said as the executive council requires seven members to endorse any decision, Vice Chancellor Khagendra Bhattarai and Registrar Man Bahadur KC had called in Exam Controller Balaram Bhattarai and Planning Officer Hari Bahadur Khadka as invited council members to make the appointments.

It is learnt that the council had offered five seats each to the UCPN (Maoist) and the NC to fill the posts they were hiring. The CPN-UML was allowed to recommend three names.

Jhalak Nath Sharma, vice president of the PU Employees’ Association, said the council did not bother to make job vacancy announcement as is the norm. “We want transparent dealing. If you want to hire then do it according to what is said and expected to by the regulation in practice,” he said.

Meanwhile, PU Registrar KC said they did not have enough time to announce job vacancies and that the appointments were made on contract basis. “No political sharing of vacant posts was involved in the process,” he claimed, assuring that they will resolve the row through negotiation within a few days.

Meanwhile, the PU Employees Association has suspended its strike in view of the growing violence in course of the protest. The protesters had recently burnt the vehicle of Prof Indra Prasad Tiwari, dean of the Humanities and Social Sciences Department.

source: The Himalayan Times,11 Dec 2012