The Pioneer, Jan 7, 2010
Digambara Patra | Bhubaneswar
The proposed Central Universities in two remote areas of the country, Bihar and Kerala have received a denial from the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) to host new Central Universities for their States.
Getting quality faculty has been a concern in India recently irrespective of locations. Even IITs in metro cities have openly mentioned about this fact. However, many young Indians working abroad are willing to work in India, even in places like Koraput and other remote locations in India, without giving their preference to metro cities.
In many earlier cases, similar problem of inadequate infrastructure facilities have been realised in the beginning of establishing a new institution but with time not only such problem has been overcome but also the concerned institution has stood out among all for quality education in India. BITS Pilani, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Roorkee, Vishwa Bharati (Shantiniketan), North-Eastern Hill University, etc are some of them.
This type of present argument on lack of adequate facilities was being made by administrators who are unwilling to serve in those localities for personal reasons. Unfortunately, MHRD is blindly supporting such move. Tomorrow when the Central University at Koraput would stand out like IIT Kharagpur today, can this people reverse the system? How is the North-Eastern Hill University in Shillong not facing such difficulty?
This is all about politics by administrators to neglect rural and semi-urban locations in India. How often the Vice-chancellor of Koraput Central University visits Koraput is well-known to the people of Odisha. She was appointed due to her closeness to former Minister Arjun Singh and to make such persons’ activity easier such arguments are being made and supported by the MHRD. There are many such people hiding underneath to occupy powerful positions in India. The MHRD should not serve the interest of those people rather it should serve the whole nation irrespective of poor, rich, caste, creed, religion, region, rural or urban area. The current movement of the MHRD is a total marginalisation of rural and semi-urban location in India.
The MHRD should not go following those people’s perception but equally establish Central Universities in both rural, semi-urban and urban pockets. When Public Universities are located in semi-urban locations in other nations, why is it not possible in India?
On the other hand, when building infrastructure is the responsibility of the Government, why should the MHRD neglect a location based on such criteria, instead of asking the Government to build along with it?
-- The writer is Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon. He can be contacted at digpatra@yahoo.com
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