CHENNAI: Ramanujan Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics (RIASM), founded in 1950 to honour the legacy of noted mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan and elevated in 1967 as a centre for advanced mathematical research by UGC, seems to be on the verge of losing its identity.
Once a prestigious research centre, which hosted eminent mathematicians like RA Rankin, IG Macdonald, JM Anderson, RLE Schwarzenberger, KD Elworthy, D Rees, George Lusztig may soon become history as the institute’s dilapidated infrastructure has been declared unsafe (by the university) and the centre has been asked to shift to the Stationery building of University of Madras (UoM) immediately, according to an official document accessed by TNIE.
Due to years of neglect and lack of maintenance, the current RIASM campus, spread over sprawling 3.38 acres which was constructed with the UGC’s grant of Rs 14.4 lakh in 1972, is now in a shambles.
Walking through the campus on Wallajah Road in Chepauk, one can easily notice the plasters peeling away from the ceiling, broken windows and doors. Classrooms, where seminars on algebra, harmonic analysis, and stochastic processes were once exhilarating, now suffer from huge cracks, leaky roofs, and are in desperate need of repair.
For years, the university has been struggling with financial crisis and has turned a blind eye to RIASM’s condition.
However, what has irked the academicians is that recently the state government announced to construct a working women’s hostel, for the social welfare department, inside RIASM campus ignoring its pitiable condition. The construction work of the hostel will start soon, as a result of which RIASM building’s damage can worsen further and hence registrar of the university has directed head of RIASM to shift from the campus.
However, officials said the space allocated at stationary building has already been occupied by some other department, so for the time being classes are being held in the two rooms of Malaviya Mission Teacher Training Centre, located on the varsity campus. “The situation is very precarious. Teachers have to wait outside the classrooms as there is no place for them to sit,” said a student. RIASM currently has seven faculty members and 122 students, including 10 PhD scholars.
V Thangaraj, former director of RIASM, had filed a grievance with the Chief Minister’s cell about the decrepit condition of RIASM in 2022. Acting on it the higher education department had inspected it in October 2023 and instructed chief architect of the PWD to prepare a master plan for new structure after its demolition, however nothing has happened so far, he laments.
University registrar Rita John said, “Efforts will be taken to restore the institute with the help of alumni.”