8 years on, NIT students await campus, hostel
Dehradun:established in 2009, the National Institute of Technology, Uttarakhand (NITUK), located in Srinagar, is still struggling to provide basic necessities to its students. It is also failing to deliver on academic front.
As per the data submitted by NITUK to the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), the framework approved by the Union human resource development ministry to rank universities and colleges, a total of 957 students were enrolled in the institute’s undergraduate programme in 2017-18 while 63 in post-graduate programmes.
Despite being functional for the past eight years, the institute does not have its own campus.
“We share the campus of Government Polytechnic Srinagar. Until last year, there was no hostel accommodation for male students of Mtech. This year, we have been given accommodation but four to six people stay in one room,” said Kuber Suryavanshi, a final year Mtech student.
A student of Btech on condition of anonymity said, “Since we don’t have enough number of classrooms, our college timings have been increased.”
Students also complain of lack of academic facilities. “There is a serious lack of equipment. Mtech and Btech students share the laboratories. There are no separate facilities for PHD students. There are hardly any books or research material in the library. No new faculty wants to join because it is so far away,” said Shalini Chauhan, a PHD student at NITUK. “We don’t get our stipend on time as well.”
Data submitted to the NIRF show NITUK had spent ₹28.5 lakh in 2014-15 on library. In 2015-16, this increased to ₹77.4 lakh. However, in 2016-17, this fell down to ₹7.5 lakh. Similarly, the expenditure on new equipment for laboratories fell down to ₹15.5 lakh in 2016-17 from ₹1.79 crore in 2015-16.
However, the expenditure on salaries of teaching and nonteaching staff has been increasing every year — from ₹7.54 crore in 2015-16 to ₹8.87 crore in 2016-17.
The institute has not registered any patents from 2014 to 2017. It has not received any funding for any of its research projects in 2015-16 and 2016-17. While the institute received one consultancy project in 2015-16 worth ₹32,200, it did not receive any project the following year.
Responding to this, director in-charge of NTUK RB Patel said, “We have not been able to realise our potential as per our expectation when it comes to students conducting researches or registering patents, but we are working towards it. A lot of problems take place due to the space constraint we are facing.”
Patel acknowledged the issue of hostel accommodation as well. “As we do not have hostel space for students, we have even rented hotels in the area where the students are staying. Due to the space constraint, we have also cut down on the number of students we admitted this year. We are waiting for the government to give us land where the new campus can be constructed,” he said.