December 8, 2020.
TED NewsDesk, New Delhi: With an objective to make education easier and administration work lighter, Delhi University is planning on extending its reach to a third campus in the east of Delhi. Currently, it has two campuses apart from many affiliated colleges across Delhi, north and south where graduate and postgraduate classes take place.
According to the Pro-VC PC Joshi, the new campus will probably be established in the Surajmal area of east Delhi. He added, “We have land in east Dekhi and we are trying to develop that into a campus, just like we have a North and South campus, we are trying to have a campus in the east Delhi also. The university’s high- powered committee has recently inspected the site and we are holding a meeting on Wednesday to discuss this. We will then take the matter to other statutory bodies of the university for their approval.” As per the official account of DU on Twitter, the Pro-VC and other officials have been to the site on December 5.
In the proposed campus, the administration has decided to set up a law centre and liberal arts departments. According to Joshi, “We have already made a plan but it’s still in a very preliminary stage. The project will cost around Rs 600 crore so we will also have to make provisions for the funds. These things take time but we have started moving in that direction.”
There is a lot of burden on both the current campuses, making it quite difficult for the administration to cope up with so much work, to this end, the east Delhi campus will provide a huge relief. According to the DU Dean of College, Balram Pani, “Currently, the South campus is taking care of the administrative work of 24 colleges and the North campus is looking after the remaining 40-plus colleges. It would become easier for colleges located in east and north-east Delhi to work efficiently, if they will have their own campus.”
Many DU colleges are in support of this decision, reasoning it will also help them ease administrative work, as per the Principal of Shaheed Rajguru College, Payal Mago, “We have to send someone to the North campus for some administrative work almost daily. Our students also have to travel all the way to the North campus for any grievance. It becomes even more difficult for us to coordinate during examination or admissions. Things will become really easier for us if we get a campus in Surajmal Vihar.”
On the other hand, according to Deepak Pental, the former VC of DU, the university should utilise the new campus for starting new courses instead of establishing the same old courses being offered in the North andSouth campuses, “The university doesn’t need to have another campus repeating the same postgraduate courses it is already offering in the other two. The new campus should either offer very different courses or it should be dedicated to the SoL which is already battling poor infrastructure. Besides, the university can set-up as many administrative offices there”
Nevertheless, a new campus is a welcome move for Delhi university, it will provide a lot of ease to not only the staff but also the students.
Source: Hindustan Times
