Students of University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE) are a worried lot as Bengaluru Central University (BCU) has allegedly refused permission to use the Jnanajyothi auditorium for their pre-placement talk next week.
One student said that the talk was scheduled for Monday. During the event, a company will present a one-and-a-half hour talk followed by an online test.
“As many as 500 final-year students of all branches will be a part of the talk. We got permission for a talk to be held on Wednesday, but officials of the varsity have orally told us that we will not be allowed to use the auditorium on Monday,” said a final-year student of UVCE.
The Bangalore University, Bengaluru Central University (BCU) and Bengaluru North University are fighting to use the auditorium.
During a recent meeting to address the issues pertaining to trifurcation of Bangalore University, Higher Education Minister G.T. Deve Gowda said that a committee consisting of all three vice chancellors would look into the day-to-day activities of the auditorium and mentioned that students of all the three universities could use the auditorium free of cost until a similar facility is set up in their respective varsities.
The auditorium was established in 1999 and has a seating capacity of 1,100. It is used for many academic and cultural programmes by the university. It is an important source of revenue and fetches over ₹1 crore annually to the university. While all the revenue went to the parent Bangalore University, Mr. Deve Gowda has now said that the money remained after utilising the expenditure should go to BCU.
Officials of the university said that the cost of using the auditorium for one day ranges from ₹10,000 to ₹15,000. “We have given them the auditorium for one day. Who will foot the bill?” an official said.
