Eating disorder: LU orders 76 lunch packets for 19 officials

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Eating disorder: LU orders 76 lunch packets for 19 officials

Elected members of LU’s court have sought details about restaurant bills under RTI Act; V-C says will probe the matter
Asit Srivastava
Lucknow, July 31 If gluttony is a sin, then officials of the Lucknow University’s administrative department will pay for it.
University heads have noted with concern that at an Executive Council meeting, 19 officials “ate” the lunch of 76 people. The meeting was held on June 10 last year at Vice-Chancellor Professor Ram Prakash Singh’s residence in the morning.

Similarly, in a meeting of the 100-odd members of the LU’s Academic Council, 210 packets of snacks were ordered.

An EC member confirmed to Newsline that 76 lunch packets were sanctioned at the June 10 meeting. He said that no EC member, including the body’s chairman Singh, is entitled to a “VIP lunch” in meetings of the Executive Council. This has raised questions whether some varsity officials have made money out of the whole exercise by ordering more lunches than was actually consumed.

It is learnt that the food for the Academic Council meet cost Rs 20,462, among which snacks were for Rs 16,250 and the rest had been spent on cold drinks and mineral water bottles.

The money had been sanctioned under the category of “VIP snacks”.
The 76 lunch packets for the EC meeting came from the Ritz Continental Corner, a restaurant in the Mahanagar locality, and cost the university Rs 14,082. Newsline is in possession of both bills.

Taking strict note of this “overeating” by varsity officials, elected members of LU’s court have sought details about the bills under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
They want to know what was the exact amount sanctioned by the administration in these two meetings.

“However, administration officials are in no mood to provide the bill details. We asked for them nearly two months ago but no action has been taken yet,” a member of the LU’s court told Newsline.

When contacted, Vice-Chancellor Ram Prakash Singh said the matter had not been brought to his notice. He assured he will inquire into the whole affair to know whether excess payment had been made by the university’s administration officials.


Eating disorder: LU orders 76 lunch packets for 19 officials