HRD minister pushes for optimum utilisation of funds

In a Conference of the Vice Chancellors and the Directors of Central Educational Institutions held in New Delhi on Monday (November 10), Union Minister for Human Resource Development Arjun Singh asked all central universities and institutions to scrupulously observe financial discipline and the need to ensure maximum utilisation of funds for the promotion of higher education.

Speaking on the eve of country’s first National Education Day – November 11, the minister pushed for optimum and timely utilisation of funds to meet the quality, equity and high standards of higher education.

Expressing hope for a collective commitment, Arjun Singh said that the universities would be able to attain the gross enrolment ratio of 15% by 2015 and to enhance quality of Higher Education along with the expansion of seats.

He said that the government had promised and will be able to provide increasing access to high quality education to the disadvantaged and minority groups, while specifying the accommodation of OBC students in premier institutes.

The Minister for Human Resource Development, Arjun Singh, also elucidated that the principle of equity implied not merely a right of all to exist, but a right to flourish and grow.

He, however, expressed his dissatisfaction over the under-utilisation of resources by some central institutions and even by the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).

According to a ministry statement, out of the Rs379 crore released by the University Grants Commission (UGC) to the central universities, only 59 percent have been utilised so far. And same in the case of technical institutes as they have only spent Rs260 crore out of the Rs640 crore released in the first instalment. The MHRD has allocated a total grant of Rs1,647 crore to technical institutions.