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Tamil Nadu
CHENNAI: Meenakshi University engineering students on Friday held a demonstration against the authorities of the deemed university, protesting lack of infrastructure and other facilities, examination schedule and any clear approval for BE courses. About 400 students staged the protest in front of the administration block from 8:30 am till about 2 pm, when the police were called in to disperse them. The students say they are forced to share the facilities of the Sri Muthukumaran Institute of Technology, a group institution affiliated to Anna University, Chennai, as their university has no facilities of its own. “We don’t have classrooms, labs, hostels or even any building of our own,” said a first year BE Computer Science and Engineering student. “We can see some buildings being constructed, which they say is for us, but there is nothing yet.” “We can only use the labs when the Muthukumaran students are not using them,” said a BE Mechanical Engineering student. No university examination schedule has been announced yet. “We have just started model examinations [for 2008-09], when everyone else is starting the next academic year,” added the student. The university is unable to give them any firm assurance that the BE course they are studying is approved by the relevant authorities. “We are the first batch. We joined the course because we knew about [the university’s] medical colleges,” said one hostel student. “Now they are not able to tell us if the course is really approved by the UGC.” The institution was granted deemed university status by the University Grants Commission in 2004. The UGC website lists only two constituent units of Meenakshi University approved by the government – Meenakshi Medical College and Research Institute at Enathur and the Meenakshi College of Nursing. However, the university’s website lists three more constituent colleges and a faculty of engineering and technology. “When we joined, they told us that we must study half the year at Muthukumaran, because they were still building the Meenakshi campus. But now there is no campus, no building, no approval – just in name it is a university,” said a hostel student. “On Monday, they told us they will show us the approvals by Friday, but they still have nothing. Even if they get approval next year, it will be no use for us first year students,” said a student. At the west KK Nagar city office of the university, admissions are in full swing for 2009-10, even though the current students have not yet completed their examinations. When asked who was granting the BE degree, admissions officer Subbu said, “It’s a UGC degree…Last year, we became a deemed university.” The Vice-Chancellor and other officials were not available for comment. G. Srinivas, joint secretary of the UGC’s south-eastern regional office, said that such BE courses should not have been started by the deemed university without approval from the All India Council for Technical Education. An AICTE official said it will look into reports of Sri Muthukumaran Institute of Technology sharing its facilities with Meenakshi University.
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