Academic Senate meet of OU held to pass budget

‘Third and fourth quarter grant not released'

Hyderabad: Teachers questioned massive cut in grants given by the State government to Osmania University even after the budget was approved by the Assembly.

“No Chief Minister can stop allocations after being approved by the Assembly and this message should be sent to the government firmly passing a resolution,” P.L. Vishweshwer Rao, Dean, Faculty of Arts said at the Academic Senate meeting of OU that met on Monday to pass the university budget.

He said the government did not release the third and fourth quarter grants though the Assembly approved a budget of Rs. 98.44 crore. It was later reduced to Rs. 75 crore but nearly 50 p.c. of that was not released by the government. A deficit of Rs. 7.38 crore has been projected for the year 2010-2011 with the estimated income put at Rs.308.64 crore while the projected expenditure was put at Rs.316.02 crore.

Alternative sources

Presenting the budget S. Bhupatthi Rav, member, Executive Council said the university would explore alternative sources of income for generation of funds through introduction of new courses adoption of alternative measures in expenditure and optimal utilisation of university infrastructure to cover up the deficit.

Prof. Rav said 48.54 per cent of income was being spent on salaries and pensions but the cut in government grants forced the university to transfer Rs. 15 crore each from the Examination Fee fund and PGRR Centre for Distance Education fund to OU fund. Development plans

Earlier, Vice-Chancellor T. Tirupathi Rao highlighted the university's academic activities and developmental plans. He said job-oriented health education courses (PG Dip. programmes) in collaboration with corporate hospitals would be taken up.

Other developmental activities include construction of second floor of the ladies hostel at a cost of Rs. 2 crore, new hostel building exclusively for girl students of Nizam College at cost of Rs.1.2 crore, new building to provide accommodation on rental basis to SBH, OU branch at a cost of Rs.1.14 crore, construction of classrooms, library and sports hall for law students on the campus at a cost of Rs. 36 lakh, construction of separate building for the Dept of Geography and Geo-informatics on campus at a cost of Rs.75 lakh.