Union Education Ministry releases Rs 206 cr to develop Puducherry varsity

The Higher Education Funding

Agency of the Union Education Ministry has released Rs 206.94 crore to Pondicherry University to develop its infrastructure.

Vice-Chancellor of the varsity Gurmeet Singh said the grant would be utilised to construct new buildings for various departments, hostels, research centres and staff quarters.

The main campus of the institution here and also the campuses of the varsity's annexes in Karaikal and Andaman and Nicobar Islands would be equipped with new facilities.

The Vice-Chancellor said the University Grants Commission (UGC) had asked the university to submit proposals for an additional grant of Rs 90 crore to construct new buildings for the Departments of Food Science, Performing Arts and also for a lecture hall atthe community college run by the university.

He said the institution had already submitted proposals to the UGC for introducing new courses in virology and pharmacology in the university with modern lab facilities to conduct research on communicable, non-communicable and rare diseases, including the novel coronavirus.

Gurmeet Singh said the university was in the process of revising the syllabi for all the academic programmes in agreement with the New Education Policy on the basis of the guidelines of the UGC. "The syllabi will be duly updated and made industry-friendly," he said.

Online academic programmes would also be introduced to enable those who could not get enrolled in the on-campus programmes. "More students will be benefited by this offline academic programmes," the Vice-Chancellor said.

"Presently, 50,000 students are applying for admission to various courses under on-campus programmes. But, only 30,000 students are able to get on-campus admission," he said.

The Vice-Chancellor said steps were under way to provide at least two smart classrooms in each department in the university fitted with microphones and cameras to telecast lectures live through the university's website.

He is optimistic that the varsity would achieve in the next couple of years the targets set in the New Education Policy.