Indore: DAVV becomes ineligible to receive yearly grant of Rs 10 crore

Indore: Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya tends to lose annual grant of Rs 10 crore as funding authority ministry of human resource development has linked its ambitious Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) with student-teacher ratio. In a meeting of representatives from different universities, MHRD officers said that grants under RUSA would be provided to only those institutions which have minimum 75 per cent of teachers to what is required as per teacher-student ratio.

The DAVV does not meet this condition so it may not get grant under RUSA scheme. “The MHRD has linked grant with teacher-students ratio. As per their rule, only those instiuttes will be eligible for RUSA grant which have at least 75 per cent of teacher as per student-teacher ratio,” said DAVV incharge registrar Ajay Verma who was in Delhi to attend the meeting.

Verma admitted that the number of teachers are less to what is required but added that they would soon make new appointments. “We will appoint about 170 faculty members against vacancies flying in different teaching departments,” Verma said. The DAVV teaching departments have around 220 regular faculty members were the requirements is of about 470 teachers. The MHRD had allocated Rs 10 crore grant to the DAVV in fiscal 2015-16 and Rs 10 crore in fiscasl 2016-17.

The university was expecting Rs 10 crore grant in fiscal 2017-18 as well but with the MHRD attaching condition with the grant, the DAVV is unlikely to get the funds now. The MHRD’s conditions is likely to hit government colleges as well as student-teacher ratio at colleges is even worst.

RUSA is a centrally sponsored scheme, launched in 2013 that aims at providing strategic funding to eligible state higher educational institutions. The central funding (in the ratio of 65:35 for general category states and 90:10 for special category states) would be norm based and outcome dependent.