BENGALURU:A government agency is in the dock for inviting tenders for a digitisation project at the Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) even before it was approved by the university.
VTU has proposed an e-Learning project worth Rs 70 crore for five years under which contents of engineering course textbooks are to be digitised at a cost of Rs 14 crore per year.
State-run Karnataka State Electronics Development Corporation Limited (KEONICS) had called tenders for the project in May 2015 and it even submitted a proposal in August to take up the project.
Surprisingly, the authorities of the university’s e-learning committee, its Academic Senate and the Executive Council, which is the highest decision-making body of the university, were unaware of this development.
Speaking to Express, Karan Kumar H, member of VTU Executive Council, said, “This (calling tenders for the project) was placed as an agenda in the meeting on September 29 for approval. When we cross-checked, we were shocked to see that tenders for the project were called five months ago.”
“I have written a letter to the registrar, seeking complete details of the process and project. Once I get them, I will approach the Governor, who is the Chancellor of universities. How can any agency call for tenders before the project gets approval from the authorities?” Karan Kumar said.
Some members of the Executive Council and Academic Senate feel this could have been a procedural lapse. “We are sure there is some procedural lapse. We need to check if it is at the university level or at KEONICS level. It is impossible without the involvement of senior officials of the university,” they said.
Documents available with Express show that KEONICS had called for tenders on May 28 and the last date for submitting tender bids was June 11.
The amount quoted was Rs 70 crore for five years and it was calculated as Rs 45 a student per subject.
Members also wonder why there were no principal representatives from the affiliated colleges or the Academic Senate and Executive Council in the e-learning committee.
Dr Sridhar, principal of PES College of Engineering, Mandya, who is an Academic Senate member, said, “The issue was not discussed in the Academic Senate properly. They never disclosed or discussed the amount involved. We have not even approved it. We don’t know anything about the tender which they have already issued and not informed the House about. None of us were aware that the tender was already called.”
However, when Express contacted Dr H Maheshappa, Vice-chancellor of VTU, he said, “There is no procedural lapse. We have issued the order to KEIONICS recently. Whatever information is with the media has been cooked up by some people. I am not bothered if they had called for tenders earlier. The government must check that.”
Reacting to this, Basavarajendra, Director-Technical KEONICS, said, “We did not call any tenders, we just sent a proposal to VTU. We generally call for implementation of tenders. We have not given any work orders with respect to VTU.”
The e-learning Project
Under the e-learning project, the university is digitising textbook content of engineering courses into 2D and 3D format and also into an animation series. For this, the university has been collecting `2,000 from students along with their admission fee since 1998.