Chandigarh:May 25:Harsh weather, vacation and holidays have no dampening effect on the struggle of teachers and students for the central university status for P.U. Today many students and teachers from the Basic Medical Sciences, instead of spending Sunday to catch up with the pending assignments decided to sit on the chain fast in pouring rain.
It was the 49th day of the fast today, and JAC is preparing for the show off tomorrow to mark the 50th day of the chain fast. Kewal Singh, directorate of Sports, Ravi Kiran, department of Bio-Chemistry, Bimla Nehru, department of Bio-Physics and A.R. Rao, department of UIPS along with his four research scholars, B. Laxminarayana, Bala Kumar, Kiran Kumar Akula, and Ramesh M. sat on the fast for today.
Panjab University is one of the rare universities of India where all the basic medical sciences are put together under one umbrella and are making coordinated efforts in latest research in medicine. Many of the departments, such as, Bio-Chemistry, Bio-Physics, and Micro-biology are running honour school courses, told Prof. A.R. Rao of UIPS. The department of Pharmacy has produced many eminent scientists, two of them, Prof. R.R. Handa and Prof. C.K Atal, worked as director of prestigious Regional Research Laboratories, Jammu, disclosed Prof. Rao. Similarly the department of Bio-Physics produced Dr C.P. Puri who worked as director of National Institute of Reproductive Biology, Mumbai, and Dr Pawan Singla, cardio-vascular scientist of international repute.
Despite all these achievements, there is no space in the building even to accommodate faculty told Dr. Bimla Nehru, department of Bio-Physics. Only a few senior professors have independent rooms to sit and the remaining faculty is either sitting in the respective labs or in the small cabins made with temporary partition. The buildings of the departments are more than 40 years old and require urgent repair. However, the shortage of the funds can be guessed from the fact that even for putting up a water cooler in the building the students had to pool their own money, told the faculty while sharing their financial woes. There was a unanimous view that central university status is the only way out of the current financial crunch of P.U.