Indore: DAVV to get Rs 65 crore grant from World Bank

Indore: In what could bring some cheers to the faces disappointed over the drop in national ranking of Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya (DAVV), the World Bank (WB) will be extending a grant of Rs 65 crore to the university for improving its infrastructure and quality of education. The amount is five times to what University Grants Commission (UGC) allocates to the DAVV under five-year development plan. With this amount, the university can do wonders. It can not only improve its infrastructure but can also enhance its facilities and library and can send its teachers abroad for upgrading their teaching skills.

“The World Bank grant is really huge and we are hopeful of getting it this year itself,” said vice chancellor Dr Narendra Dhakad. A proposal for the funds has been sought by World Bank under its Madhya Pradesh Higher Education Quality Improvement Project.

Dhakad said that they would submit the proposal at the earliest. Under Madhya Pradesh Higher Education Quality Improvement Project, the WB has decided to pump in a total Rs 2000 crore in select educational institutions of the state.
The project envisages centres of excellence in select colleges and university departments so that best learning practices and research is ensured. It would provide scholarships, upgrade faculty skills and extend technical assistance for institutions.

“However, only government-run universities and colleges are entitled for the grant which will flow via Department of Higher Education,” said Prof Abhay Kumar, professor incharge of development cell at DAVV. He said that the project envisages six centres of excellence in each university and one centre in each government college. But the WB has signalled at approving eight centres at DAVV.

Reasons for special benefit

As per the conditions of the project, the institutions vying for WB funds had to undergo a training programme at Indian Institute of Management Indore before applying for the grant. The DAVV team of professors underwent the training programme in last week of February.

“Teams of some universities had not attended the programme so representatives of the WB asked DAVV to send proposal for setting up of centres of excellence at eight teaching departments instead of six,” said Kumar adding that they have been asked to select five departments running science and engineering courses, two offering humanities course and one department which running management course.

He said that the departments running sciences includes School of Electronics, School of Computer Science and IT, School of Chemical Sciences, Institute of Engineering & Technology and Educational Multimedia Research Centre. As per project rules, these departments are to get a grant of Rs 10 crore each. The rest three departments are School of Education, School of Social Sciences and Institute of Management Studies. These three departments are to get Rs 5 crore each.

In NIRF rankings announced lately, DAVV slipped down from the ranking bracket of 101-150 to 151 to 200 bracket. The decline in ranking has set in a general depression among students and teachers of DAVV.

45% of UGC grant lapsed

Despite being given additional time of six months, the DAVV could not fully utilise Rs 13.5 crore grant sanctioned by the UGC under XII five-year development plan in 2012. Nearly 45 per cent of the total grant, which is about Rs 6 crore, remained unused and lapsed.

Vice chancellor of DAVV, Dr Narendra Dhakad said that they have spent respectable amount from the grant. “When I took charge as vice chancellor in May 2016 a major part of the UGC grant was lying unutilised. My team and I made sure that the unspent grant should be utilised. We spent about Rs 8 crore of the total Rs 13.5 crore grant,” he said.

The entire funds were to be spent by March 31, 2017 but bought six months from the UGC as it could not spent the whole grant. The extended deadline exhausted on September 31 even as the DAVV sought another six months for spending the remaining amount about Rs 6 crore.

But this time, the request was declined. The VC said that he would ensure that constitute a committee of professors who would ensure that grants received by DAVV are spent within the prescribed time frame in future.