The company, Cyberframe Solutions, which maintains the site, had blocked it claiming that the university has not paid the annual charges. The university, however, claims that the payment has been made.

Janmeja Singh Johl, son of renowned farm economist Dr S S Johl, has extended help.

“I just hope that this controversy blows over,” he said.

“If there is need, we can collectively sponsor the university’s site and I assure you that it will never come down. I also urge my classmates to come forward. On my part, I will get a free domain name booking for five years,” he said.

Well-known floriculturist Avtar Singh Dhindsa, who is also a member of the PAU board of management has also extended a helping hand. “I am ready to pay for the site,” he says. Dhindsa is a student of the 1972 batch.

“This is my duty as a former student of the university. Meanwhile, as a member of the board, it is my duty to look into the factors that led to the closing down of PAU’s website and also set things right. PAU is a prestigious institute and we simply can not afford this kind of embarrassment,” he said.

Said Jang Bahadur Singh Sangha, a member of the PAU Board of Management and known as the potato king of Punjab, “A little more than monetarily contributing is needed. It is not that PAU can’t pay this small amount for maintaining its website. I personally feel that the audit departments need to be set straight and for this, I will personally look into the ways and means by which this can be done”.

Sangha is a student of the 1985 batch of Punjab Agricultural University.

“The process of allocating services to vendors, making payments, buying scientific equipment and other such processes are a common feature in PAU and we will devise ways by which such embarrassing incidents do not occur in the future,” he said.

Meanwhile, despite the university’s warning to the vendor to start the website or face action, the website was not unblocked.