The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Anna University seeks Rs. 64-crore grant

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Wednesday, Aug 20, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Anna University seeks Rs. 64-crore grant

Priscilla Jebaraj

It will be spent on new buildings, faculty, books and journals, equipment, research and campus development

It seeks Rs. 7.43 crore to hire and support new teaching staff
UGC team given a presentation on Eleventh Plan proposals

CHENNAI: Anna University is making a pitch for a Rs. 64-crore grant from the University Grants Commission under the Eleventh Five Year Plan.

The money will be spent on new buildings, faculty, books and journals, equipment, research and campus development, according to Vice-Chancellor P. Mannar Jawahar.

Research equipment takes the lion’s share of the proposals, with the request amounting to Rs. 22.78 crore. “Whenever we start new courses and programmes, they all need support with cutting-edge equipment,” said Dr. Jawahar. Building projects require another Rs. 18.13 crore. Proposals include new hostels for men and women on the Guindy and Chromepet campuses—the existing hostels are full to bursting—as well as new lecture hall complexes.

The university is asking for Rs. 7.43 crore to hire and support new teaching staff, at the rate of approximately Rs. 20 lakh per faculty member, over five years. Research requires another Rs. 6.49 crore, while books and journals need a Rs. 2.33-crore grant. Campus development proposals to build and maintain roads, water and sewerage pipelines, lighting and lawns amount to a further Rs. 5 crore.

The 10-member UGC team, which arrived on Tuesday morning, was given a presentation on the university’s Tenth Plan expenditure and the Eleventh Plan proposals before it toured the common campus facilities. While they spent the afternoon visiting the Madras Institute of Technology, AC Tech College and the School of Architecture, they will visit the College of Engineering, Guindy, on Wednesday. The UGC is expected to announce the amount granted in a month.

The university had sought almost Rs. 50 crore under the Tenth Plan, but was granted only Rs. 7.61 crore, half of which was used to buy equipment, with the remainder going for some books and journals and five or six new staff. Most building plans were rejected.

While the university hopes this time will be different, it is exploring other means of carrying out future plans. As expansion is essential, it is looking to use the land available in the former Highways Department compound opposite the Raj Bhavan. The university plans to construct a new building for the Centre for Distance Education there. It has renovated the buildings to house a men’s hostel, a mechanical engineering laboratory and the offices of the Controller of Examinations.

New scheme

On the faculty front, a new scheme to hire teaching and research associates has boosted the faculty strength by almost 20 per cent over the past month. The university has hired 80 such associates, who hold ME degrees and are expected to complete their PhDs within four years.

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