MHRD has asked  University Grants Commission to provide a grant of Rs 21.73 crore to the Panjab University. This release comes after the university's Registrar and Finance Development Officer (FDO) on Tuesday submitted a clarification on the five objections raised by UGC related to the use of previous grants.

Registrar Col G S Chadha said,

“I received an email today from the ministry’s office in which they have issued directions to release a grant of Rs 21.73 crore. We had gone and submitted our reply to MHRD and UGC on their queries on how we are going to increase our finances. They found some inconsistency which we explained to them today.”

This situation to release grant urgently arrived because of lack of funds with Panjab University for paying salaries to the teaching staff for the month of March, though the salary for the teaching staff has been cleared for the month of February. Earlier, a sum of Rs. 176 crore was sanctioned to the varsity. On March 9, 2017, UGC raised various objections regarding the draft submitted by Panjab University for the grant. UGC pointed that even though the varsity decided to reduce the number of teaching and non-teaching posts, the reduction of salary has not been shown in proportion to the reduction in the number of staff. Therefore, UGC had directed the varsity to prepare a draft plan through which the varsity can increase its internal revenue from various sources.

PU Vice-Chancellor Arun Kumar Grover has said that the varsity was yet to receive any communication from UGC about the release of the grant.