After a day-long debate on Friday, the Syndicate and the senate of the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) have decided to defy the Government Order asking the varsity to transfer ₹580 crore from the university corpus fund to the State government for construction of a campus in Ramanagaram.
Sources, part of the meeting, said the senate had passed a resolution stating that the university would provide funds only for the construction of the administrative block, which was also permitted by a High Court order in June this year. Students staged a protest outside RGUHS headquarters in Bengaluru while the meeting was in progress to mark their opposition to the shifting of the campus.
At the syndicate meeting, three resolutions were passed — the government should hand over litigation-free land for the construction of the new campus and that a contemporary design for the university administrative block should be finalised with inputs for the varsity as they felt that the old design plan was “obsolete”. “The third and most important decision was that ₹580 crore will not be transferred to the State government as the Governor and the Chancellor had directed the university to maintain status quo,” a source said.
Although the shifting of the campus was mooted over a decade ago, it was only in March this year that the process of shifting began in a phased manner. Currently, only the engineering section has been shifted to Ramanagaram.
Sources in the university said they remain sceptical of shifting the campus as about 77 acres of the total 217 acres at Archakarahalli (where the new campus is expected to come up) is still under litigation.
