Notable here is the Mukesh Siag, general secretary, Punjab Agricultural University Teachers Union, is currently doing his doctorate from College of Agricultural Engineering. Siag has been spearheading a campaign against the Vice-Chancellor Dr Manjit Singh Kang. Before joining doctorate, Siag was a teacher in the same college.

Dr Kang meanwhile informed, “Doctorate programme in PAU is a full-time programme and when one becomes a student and he enjoys all the facilities offered to the students like use of library, room in hostel and so on. Thus as per us, Siag is a student. However with PAUTA constitution silent on whether or not he can participate in PAUTA activities, he is working overzealously for PAUTA.”

Dr Kang added, “Doctorate is a very serious programme and Siag is at his thesis stage. We aspire that any thesis that comes out of PAU doctorate programme should be of very high standards and hence a person who is doing its doctorate do just that. In case, he wants to join PAUTA politics he can give up his course and join back, and we will have no problem at all.”

On the need of a new policy, Dr Kang remarked, “We just want to make the rules crystal clear. Moreover, PAU has never faced this kind of situation before so we felt that we should have a clear cut policy on whether a person doing in service Phd is a student or a teacher.”