NEW DELHI: Once billed as a prime example of what “international cooperation” can achieve, the South Asian University (SAU), founded in 2010 as part of the Manmohan Singh government’s effort to energise the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), is today beset by difficult-to-resolve problems created by all the member states.
While the Indian establishment is quick to blame Pakistan for not contributing its financial share of Rs 30 crore, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on its part has lost interest in the educational institution since SAARC itself is in the backburner. Almost all other member states owe large amounts of money to the university.
“Every SAARC country is in default. SAU’s governing body takes up the issue of financial default regularly and letters are sent out to the different capitals routinely. But these have not had any salutary effect,” well-placed government sources said. The sources revealed that SAU, which operates out of two floors of the Chanakyapuri-located Akbar Hotel, is expected to move to a new campus at Maidangarhi in October but with the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) yet to issue “occupation certificates” to the university authorities, the new building is likely to become operational not before early next year.
The total expenditure on the new campus, which is built over 100 acre, 20% of which is under litigation, has been about Rs 7,000 core, the sources said. Since its inception 12 years ago, SAU now has only about 500 students, including those from the SAARC member countries Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Pakistan,
Maldives and India who had the very limited option of choosing academic programmes from only seven disciplines such as International Relations, Sociology, Development Economics, Legal Studies, Biotechnology and Mathematics and Computer Science. Even as SAU offers only Masters and Doctoral courses, sources said that it is “making do” with about 60 teachers and 30 non-teaching staff.