The government has sanctioned Rs. 30 lakh to shore up infrastructure of Maharani’s College for Arts and Commerce and Maharani’s College for Science in the city.
At the college development council review meeting held here on Tuesday, Minister for Higher Education R.V. Deshpande authorised the grant on learning that the institution was short of necessary amenities.
While Rs. 30 lakh will partially help tide over the immediate requirements of the colleges, the Minister was apprised of the imperatives of creating new facilities as a long-term measure.
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The college caters to 5,130 undergraduate students and 700 postgraduate students. While the college requires 66 classrooms, it has only 28 at present.
To run postgraduate classes in 10 different subjects, there was a requirement of 58 classrooms against which there were only 23 classrooms.
The Minister was apprised of the need for a separate library building to handle more than 1 lakh books.
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The authorities pointed out that for a college which had nearly 6,000 students, there was no large auditorium and it was impeding their academic activities. The other requirements were a principal’s chamber, additional staffrooms, additional laboratories, toilets and hostel for students, among others.
The Minister said in view of the large number of students, the government would approve the bifurcation of Arts and Commerce college into two entities. Funds would be sanctioned for the construction of the new building, provided the local administration and the Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA) identified and allotted land for the purpose, said the Minister.
Mr. Deshpande said there were 362 government first grade colleges in the State devoid of infrastructure, while there was shortage of teaching faculty as well. District in-charge Minister V. Srinivas Prasad, Chamaraja MLA Vasu, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Mysore K.S. Rangappa and the college authorities were among those present.