Madurai Kamaraj University will be changing the proposals made already for a slew of projects under the funding from Ministry of Human Resources Development through the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) scheme, according to Vice-Chancellor P.P. Chellathurai.
He told the media on Thursday that the decision to change the proposal was made since a majority of the already proposed projects, which included installation of rainwater harvesting in buildings, construction of small check-dams inside the campus to save rainwater, making the campus Wi-Fi enabled, and setting up a multi-speciality hospital, were not student-centric.
Stating that many of the projects present in the existing proposal would be changed barring a few relevant ones, Mr. Chellathurai highlighted that an important part of the revised proposal would be upgrading of all classrooms into smart classrooms.
“There are 41 P.G. courses offered by MKU and there are 82 classrooms. However, none is Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-enabled, perhaps with the exception of few seminar halls that have projectors,” he said, adding that all these classrooms would now be equipped with projectors, smart white boards and computers with high-speed internet connection.
Similarly, he said that a students amenities centre, which will include a cafeteria of 20,000 square feet size, discussion rooms, language labs and internet kiosks, will also be constructed with part of its funding coming from RUSA.
Mr. Chellathurai said that the projects to be undertaken under RUSA would be planned and executed in accordance with the vision of making MKU a world-class university.
Sources said that roughly ₹ 20 crore had been sanctioned for MKU under the RUSA, which was started in 2013 with the key objective of infrastructural improvement in higher education institutions across the country. According to them, ₹ 10 crore has been already released to the university.
Concerns have earlier been raised regarding delay by MKU in utilisation the RUSA fund since many universities had commenced the projects in 2015 itself.
It can be noted that when the university was about to call for tender for the projects after considerable delay, objections were raised regarding estimates at the Finance Committee meeting, chaired by Higher Education Secretary Sunil Paliwal in March this year when Mr. Chellathurai had not taken charge.
The university was asked by the Finance Committee to get the estimates for the infrastructure projects scrutinised and vetted by the Chief Engineer of Public Works Department in Madurai since the estimated cost allegedly lacked proper justification.
Now, with the VC’s decision to change the proposal, a section of academicians in the university opined that the execution of projects might further witness prolonged delay.
“All the proposals should be approved by the Project Approval Board of MHRD. The amount released so far to MKU was based on the already submitted proposals. Revision of these proposals will therefore be tedious to say the least,” a Professor, speaking on anonymity, said.
