kolkata: The Vice-Chancellor of Jadavpur University, Suranjan Das, appealed to the alumni group of the university to 'mobilise financial support' for the university to enable it to maintain and improve the infrastructure.
In his letter of appeal, Das mentioned that in recent years the university had been facing financial issues to maintain academic excellence, especially in science and technology streams. "Being a public university, we primarily depend on government funding for organising the teaching-learning process. But the government funding—state and Central—is becoming extremely inadequate," Das stated in the letter.
According to the Pro-V-C Chiranjib Bhattacharjee there were many contributing factors leading to the university's financial difficulties. "Firstly, there used to be a plan period through the planning commission which stopped after 12th plan period. The funds used to contribute to the civil maintenance and other maintenance in the university. Due to the stopping of the plan period, fund inputs have also stopped. Secondly, due to Covid, our own funds through consultation or projects have also declined and impacted the earnings," Bhattacharjee said.
Bhattacharjee also talked about the waivers given to student fees during Covid as per government policy. He said that the waivers had affected the nominal income that the university received through fees.
"Due to this lack of funds, we have appealed to the alumni, who are in India or living abroad, particularly who can contribute a little more. We have a body called Jadavpur University Global Alumni Foundation, we have made an appeal to them," Bhattacharjee said.
Meanwhile, JU administration is also thinking of creating an alumni cell, through which they will keep a database of Jadavpur University alumni.