HYDERABAD: The Ministry of Human Resource and Development(MHRD) has come to the rescue of fund-starved Osmania University (OU) by granting Rs 100 crore as part of Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) phase-II. An additional amount of Rs 7 crore has also been approved by the ministry for the University grants Commission-Human Resource Development Centre (UGC-HRDC) at the University.
The university was recently accredited ‘A+’ grade by NAAC with a score of 3.52 grade points and was also placed under Category-I graded autonomy status. The financial grant from central government comes at a time when the 100-year-old state university was let down by Telangana government, which had promised Rs 200 crore last year as part of the Centenary celebrations.
However, only Rs 50 crore was released, dashing grand plans of the university to resurrect its glorious past by investing money on various developmental works. Even the Rs 50 crore was not utilized completely by the university. It is to be seen how much of the allotted financial grant actually reaches the university and further how much of it is utilized.
The financial grant is to be utilized completely by March, 2020. Moreover, although the central government has sanctioned the financial grant, only 60 per cent of the `100 crores will be paid by central government, while State will have to pay the remaining 40 per cent. A media release by the university on Friday said that it had earmarked `20 crore for construction of a hostel for girls, washrooms for boys and girls and common rooms in six campus colleges.
Further, Rs70 crore is proposed to be utilised for renovation and upgradation of existing facilities which include renovation of all heritage buildings, campus beautification, amenities, water supply and solar energy. Further, hostels would be modernized and classrooms would be technology-enabled. Procurement of new equipment and enhancement of facilities with an outlay of `10 crore are also on the agenda which include separate gymnasiums for girls and boys, running tracks, purchase of high performance computing systems, books and journals and purchase of new laboratory equipment.