7 Tamil Nadu universities to receive Rusa-2 funds

CHENNAI: Seven universities in Tamil Nadu would receive funds from Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) phase-2 that was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Srinagar Sunday. After the launch, the Prime Minister addressed 150 universities and colleges across the country through video-conference and interacted with the students.

Under this scheme, the category 1 Alagappa University would get Rs 100 crore for research and skilling the students. The remaining six universities — Anna, Madurai Kamaraj, Bharathiar, Bharathidasan, Annamalai and Madras University — would get Rs 50 crores each.

Under this scheme, the university can receive funds up to Rs 35 crores for research and Rs 15 crores for improving employment opportunities of students and entrepreneurship development. State universities need to prepare project proposals and place it before the expert committee to receive funds.  

“The Madras University has sent research proposals in a few areas including herbal research and drug development and big data analytics. We also plan to include new and thriving areas for conducting research,” said P.Duraisamy, Vice-Chancellor, University of Madras.

Anna University plans to boost research in cutting-edge areas. “Many departments including biotechnology and aerospace are already doing advanced research. We will fund such research activities. A part of the fund would also be given to faculty members to initiate research in new areas,” said M.K. Surappa, Vice-Chancellor, Anna University.

Some of the faculty members and students participated in the video-conference were not happy with Prime Minister Modi addressing the higher educational institutions in Hindi. “We have spent nearly a week preparing for the video-conference. But, after sitting for several hours many of us could not understand what the PM said and the interaction with the students was also very brief,” a faculty member from Madras University said.

Sources said some state universities pacified the students that they would get participation certificates.

“Except for a few, most of us could not understand what he was saying. It would have been better if the interactions in English,” a student who participated in the programme said.

During RUSA phase-1, the universities got Rs 20 crore for infrastructure development and phase-2 is focused on research and skill development of students. The fund allocation for phase-2 of the scheme would be 60:40 by central and state government respectively.