HYDERABAD: Negligence by the Telangana government is taking a toll on the financial prospect of the century-old and cash-strapped Osmania University (OU). Express finds out that the university has not received a single rupee till now out of the Rs 107 crore funds under the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) 2.0, though it has been more than a year since the university was selected for the award under this grant. The State might even lose out on utilising the funds, as the RUSA 2.0 grants are set to lapse by March 31, 2020.
The university made a grand announcement last year that it was selected by the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) for a financial grant of Rs 107 crore under RUSA 2.0. However, much improvement is expected out of State government’s attitude towards higher education, if this money is to be utilised.
The RUSA 2.0 guidelines mandate that 60 per cent of the grant amount sanctioned would be paid by the Central government and 40 per cent by the State. The State government did not sanction any amount under RUSA scheme for the university.
In fact, negligence by the State government is so grave that, as per official RUSA data, when Central government had initially sanctioned Rs 2 crore for the university, Telangana government did not sanction even Rs 80 lakh as a matching grant (40 per cent of Rs 2 crore). The university did not receive a single rupee and the money released by the Centre remains unused.
The guidelines also mandate a range of quality improvement parameters in the institution for release of the grant. One such parameter is 85 per cent of the faculty positions must be filled. Currently half of the around 1,264 teaching positions in the varsity are vacant. Prof Battu Satyanarayana, president of OU Teachers Association, says, “The university is in dire straits with no proper Executive Council, no matching grants from the State government and no recruitment, leaving the departments with just one teacher. As a result, the funds under RUSA which can prove very useful for the university continues to remain unused.”