Three days after the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) announced it would be shifting some activities to a new campus at Bheemanakuppe, sources say the university may drop its plans altogether for another campus at Ramanagaram district.
RGUHS has been functioning in rented buildings at Jayanagar since its establishment in 1999. Sources told Express: “Building a campus at Ramanagaram has become a political issue. There is a lot of pressure to construct a campus with a super specialty hospital in Ramanagaram district.”
“We are beginning the Bheemanakuppe project and later if the Ramanagaram issue is not settled, we will shift it to there,” they said and added the university is not seeking government funds as it is capable of buying land in the open market.
They added that political pressure had pushed the government to impede progress on the project. This had resulted in an identity crisis for the University, even though it was world-famous. “When you ask an auto driver to drop you at RGUHS, he asks where is it? He will take you there only if you say its next to Sanjay Gandhi Hospital. This is the identity problem we have because of not having a proper campus,” said a source.
Meanwhile, the farmers have approached the Supreme Court over compensation for giving up their land. The university will request that a new campus be set up on Bangalore University’s Jnana Bharathi premises.