BDU stares at fund depletion

With fast depleting financial resources and drastic decline in revenue from its Centre for Distance Education (CED), Bharathidasan University is facing an uphill task against mounting expenditure.

The financial managers of the university are a concerned lot. Although there is no immediate crisis, payment of pension benefits looms in the horizon as several teaching and non-teaching members are due to retire within a short span of time.

According to reliable sources, around 200 teaching and non-teaching staff members are set to retire in 2018-19 and 2019-2020.

On Thursday, six members attained superannuation. At least five to six members retire at the end of every month. The total number of prospective retirees within 2020 is more than one-fourth of the total staff strength of the University. Most of them are said to have completed more than 30 years of service. This is posing a challenge, as the university has to settle huge amounts as pension benefits to them.

According to sources, the corpus fund from which the pension benefits are settled, is less than Rs. 100 crore. It is estimated that it will have to pay an average of Rs. 30 lakh to each retiring staff member towards retirement benefits including gratuity. Although the retirement benefits differ from person to person and case to case, depending upon their service, university officials estimate that the total amount of emoluments will range between Rs. 17 lakh and Rs. 44 lakh. It is feared that the corpus fund will erode to a great extent by 2020 as about Rs. 70 crore is required to settle the pension benefits.

“We envisage the financial implications of mass retirement of faculty and non- faculty members within a short period. The resources are limited. However, there will not be much problem in settling pension dues as budget provision has been made,” said the Vice-Chancellor.

The issue would not affect the university in meeting expenditure under various heads including salary and running constituent colleges. Efforts were being made to generate revenue from various sources.

A number of steps had already been initiated to raise fee fund, general fund, sponsored research project fund and Centre for Distance Education fund. They would start yielding results soon, Mr. Manisankar said.

Source