The Bengal government has written to the University Grants Commission to “reconsider the decision” to remove Jadavpur University from the list of institutions of eminence, a status for which the regulatory body had considered JU in 2018.
In July, the UGC decided to “consider the recommendations of the empowered expert committee (EEC) to release Jadavpur University from the list of institutions recommended for the Institution of Eminence (IoE)”.
The recommendations of the EEC have now been forwarded to the Union ministry of education “for further necessary action/direction”.
State education department sources said that UGC has denied JU the status because the state government declined to share the burden of funding JU’s IoE status.
Bengal’s higher education department secretary Manish Jain has requested UGC to “keep Jadavpur University in the list of eminent institutions, as per the revised scheme” submitted by JU.
The JU had sent a revised scheme of Rs 606 crore to UGC last year, of which it sought only Rs 454 crore from the Centre and proposed to raise the remaining Rs 152 crore.
Originally, the tag of IoE made an institution eligible for a grant of Rs 1,000 crore from the Centre over five years, said a JU official.
JU vice-chancellor Suranjan Das said on Friday: “ It would be unjust and unfair to deny that status to the university.”
Repeated calls and messages to the Union minister of state for education Subhash Sarkar, who is an MP from Bengal, went unanswered.
An official of the state education department said it was unfortunate that JU was not considered for the status despite the university trimming the budget.
Jain wrote the letter to the UGC on October 5 in response to a letter that VC Das wrote to him the same day, after learning about UGC’s decision that was uploaded on its website in late September.
In July 2018, JU featured at No. 7 on a shortlist of eight “public institutions” drawn up by an empowered expert committee of UGC for the IoE status.
JU had missed out when UGC picked three from among them on July 9, 2018, with the assurance that the rest “shall be considered... at a later stage”.
A JU official said, in 2020, the university scaled down its budget estimate to 605 crore, requesting the Centre to share 75 per cent of the revised budget and a proposal to this effect was sent to the central government on May 5, 2020, through the Bengal higher education department.
VC Das wrote to Jain on October 5: “….It was subsequently communicated that the central government expected the university or the state government to bear 25 per cent of the expenses of funding Jadavpur University’s IOE status. I do appreciate that it is not feasible for the state government to provide a grant of Rs 250 crore to a single university. Accordingly, Jadavpur University submitted to the MHRD a revised budget of Rs 606 crore, 25 per cent of which (Rs 152 crore) was proposed to be raised by the university itself.”
“….I shall remain grateful if a letter can be sent to the chairman of the UGC and the ministry of education, to kindly reconsider the decision to remove Jadavpur University from the list of institutions recommended for IOE”.