Under pressure from the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government, Jadavpur University (JU) will create a fund, to be utilised exclusively for paying pension to its employees and teachers.

The state government will save nearly Rs 4 crore a year once the proposed ‘pension fund’ is set up. Now, the government pays pension to all JU employees.

“The creation of a pension fund is a must for us, as there is a clear indication from the government that it will no longer provide any money for staff pension,” said Gour Krishna Pattanayak, JU financial officer.

The government had sent many reminders to the university on the fund over the past few years. “But in a similar reminder sent to us recently, the government has given a clear-cut directive, asking us to implement the fund as early as possible,” Pattanayak added.

This development is significant because once JU is able to shoulder the responsibility, the government will ask other city-based universities, like Calcutta and Rabindra Bharati, to follow suit, education department officials said.

“The government’s proposal has already been passed in the executive council of Jadavpur University, which is its main policy-making body. We are now trying to find out the safest modes of investing the fund so that we are able to earn as much as possible through interest,” officials said.

Besides the ones in the city, pension funds for all state-aided universities in the districts, such as the Burdwan, North Bengal, Kalyani and Vidyasagar campuses, are provided by the government. The state government in 2000, for the first time sensing the impending financial crisis, had directed all the state-aided universities across Bengal to arrange their own funds for paying pension and other retirement benefits to their staff.

But, as of now, government sources said, only North Bengal university has been able to implement the scheme.

Once the scheme is implemented, the government will have no responsibility on other post-retirement benefits of university teachers and employees, including gratuity and provident fund contribution.

One of the conditions set by the government for universities setting up the pension fund is that they convert the existing contributory provident fund system of their employees to the group provident fund system.

Chittaranjan Mondal, general secretary, Jadavpur University Teachers’ Association, said many teachers of the university were against the pension fund proposal, as they feared it will add to the university’s financial burden.