Osmania University is returning unused crores

Hyderabad: At a time when Osmania University is starved of funds to even pay employees’ salaries, it is returning crores of rupees to the Centre which it had received for developing research activities, academics and infrastructure.
In 2015-16, OU returned around Rs 2 crore which it had received under various grants. A majority of it, Rs 1.5 crore, was returned in March this year.

The amount was received under the department of science and technology’s Promotion of University Research for Scientific Excellence. Another Rs 14,91,402 received by the department of biotechnology’s Interdisciplinary School of Life Science for Advanced Research and Education was also returned. Around Rs 36 lakh received for various purposes from the UGC was returned in the same year. The chief reason behind this, according to the university’s senior professors, is lack of a permanent vice-chancellor who is required for administrative purposes to spend the funds.

Principal secretary, education, Rajiv Ranjan Acharya, is the in-charge vice-chancellor. The OU professor simply does not get time from to focus on serious university matters. Also, around 10 of the 26 departments in OU, which receive Special Assistance Programme (SAP) funds from the UGC, are set to lose their grants worth nearly Rs 10 crore due to lack of faculty. The 26 departments get a total of Rs 21.35 crore under SAP.

SAP rules mandate that for getting funds, a minimum of one professor, two associate professors and four assistant professors must be present in a department. Already, two departments, Astronomy and Psychology, have lost SAP worth around Rs 1 crore for not having enough faculty. Around 670 teaching positions lie vacant across the university.