Government support for the development of infrastructure in academic institutions is going to be “smaller and smaller” and in near future the government will not provide anything for infrastructure development, the chairperson of the IIEST’s board of governors warned in his convocation speech on Friday.
Vasudev K. Atre said funds raised through the alumni would play a “key role” to fill the void.
“A couple of weeks ago, I had a meeting with the alumni about the overall develop-ment of the campus and how the alumni could help. Because you must realise government support is going to become smaller and smaller and I have a feeling that sometime in the near future, other than the salaries, I don’t think the government will provide support for any kind of infrastructure or research,” Atre said.
“This is where fundraising becomes a key issue and the alumni have a key role to play.”
The Shibpur institute is run by the central government. Its 168-year-old campus, in Atre’s words, “obviously has certain problems of infrastructure”.
The Telegraph has reported that a group of former students of IIEST Shibpur met Atre in November to remind him that the institute had not received the funds the Parliament had approved to upgrade and expand its infrastructure and to discuss the steady decline of the IIEST in NIRF rankings.
In the national ranking exercise, IIEST has slipped from 19th in 2019 to 40th in 2022.
The Centre had sanctioned Rs 592 crore in 2014 when the Bengal Engineering and Science University (Besu) was upgraded to the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST).
A member of the institute’s teachers’ association, which has repeatedly flagged its concerns over the poor condition of hostels and inadequate research facilities, said lack of funds was the key reason for the crisis.
Chunks of concrete came off the ceiling at Wolfenden Hall of Residence on the IIEST campus on August 25 and crashed on the bed of a fourth-year student, who had a lucky escape as he was away attending classes. An identical incident had happened at hostel number 11 on the campus on August 21.
Although a residential institute, many students in the first year have yet to get accommodation on the campus. They are paying through their nose for PG accommodation outside.
“The mismanagement regarding hostel accommodation will have a detrimental effect on the perception (about the institute).... The institution cannot avoid the obligation to provide all students with appropriate accommodation,” the teachers’ association had written to IIEST director Parthasarathi Chakrabarti in November.
On Friday, Atre said in his address that “in the last couple of years we have been able to convince the education ministry and others to give funds enough for the improvement of the campus”.
He, however, could not specify the quantum of funds released for the institute. “For this detail, you have to ask the director,” he later told The Telegraph.
Calls to director Chakrabarti from this newspaper went unanswered.
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