Visakhapatnam: Andhra University, the premier varsity of the state, is all set to get a facelift with funds appropriated under the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) scheme. University officials are currently drafting a detailed report as to how to invest the funds in modern and efficient infrastructure to address the increasing technological and conceptual needs of the students.
An E-classroom in each department, renovation of laboratories and workshops in Science, Engineering and Pharmacy Colleges and repurposing the hostels are some of the proposals.
Altogether, the varsity would get about Rs 100 crore in a phased manner under Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) as well as ‘Universities with Potential for Excellence’ as it was awarded ‘A’ grade by the NAAC team recently, consecutively for three cycles of accreditation. The varsity has already been sanctioned about '20 crore RUSA funds.
Poor food quality, inadequate maintenance of messes and congested hostels owing to less number of rooms are frequent complaints raised by the hostellers, particularly women hostellers. Taking a serious note of this, AU officials had also mooted the idea of constructing another hostel for girl students.
Andhra University Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Gollapalli Nageswara Rao, informed that they had already taken the issue of congested hostels to the notice of HRD minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao.
“HRD minister Mr Srinivasa Rao had agreed to extend all support from the government for construction of new hostels. We would identify a pocket of land for construction of a women’s hostel by the next academic year. About Rs 2 crore from the RUSA would be earmarked for this hostel. We would table our proposals in the next Executive Council meeting, including bolstering the infrastructure at the classrooms as well as laboratories and workshops,” he added.
In another development, the Union Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has recently allocated about Rs 44 crore to the Andhra University College of Engineering to carry out research in the areas of Electronics, System Designing and Manufacturing, IT and IT-enabled Services in the Engineering College.
