Andhra Pradesh's plan to transfer AU money draws flak

VISAKHAPATNAM: The state government’s proposal of transferring money in various accounts of Andhra University to the government’s PD accounts has drawn flak from the academia of the city. Academicians and pupils of the varsity are of the opinion that this would put the varsity’s financial autonomy at stake.

Putting the varsity in a double bind, the government has also proposed to not provide any block grants from the next academic year. The government has also advised varsity officials to make it self-sustainable than depending on the government’s funds. The university’s annual budget has been pegged up at Rs 500 crore, and of this, about Rs 290 crore was earmarked for salary expenditure.

Unfortunately, the university hasn’t got a single rupee from the block grant of Rs 290 crore promised by the state government for this academic year. Through self-finance courses, consultancy works and overhead charges, the varsity has been earning about Rs 100 crore each year.

Andhra University Vice-Chancellor Prof. G. Nageswara Rao said they do not come under the purview of the money transfer proposal as it was an autonomous body. “We replied the same to the officials,” he added.

Another professor from Andhra University opined that the government’s proposals would seriously undermine the financial autonomy of the varsity.

“Government universities are meant to serve the oppressed sections of the society and it would need some form of financial assistance from the state government. The varsity cannot run self-finance courses in all departments to make it self-sustainable. Even the university cannot charge at par with private universities for various courses as it discourages the poor students’ dream of pursuing higher studies,” he added.

When contacted, Andhra University Registrar Prof. V. Umamaheswara Rao said the block grant was stopped due to some technical reasons. “Now all decks were cleared and we would soon get the block grant for the first and second quarters, which would amount to Rs 149 crore. We made it clear to the government that bringing the university’s financial affairs into the fold of the government would hamper its prospects.

During the past six months, we met all our expenditures through our internal resources. We could luckily manage the situation without any funds from the government,” he added.