Begins with report on community work in villages

“We have planned a function,tentatively on May 14,wherein these reports and the history of 60 villages written by college students will be released,” said Narendra Jadhav. The village sarpanchs and principals of the colleges are being invited for this function,he said.

Under SBA,every college affiliated to the varsity had adopted one village and undertaken work towards its socio-economic development based on a 12-point agenda. The circular to send in reports comes exactly a month after members of PUTA and PUCTO had demanded a social audit of SBA. This is for the first time in two years that the V-C has called for a detailed report of SBA,that will complete two years on May 7.

“A sum of Rs 81 lakh had been spent and though the project was nearing its second anniversary,no details of the work done were available with the V-C. We had demanded a report to know whether the objective of this Abhiyan has been fulfilled or not,” said S P Lavande,member of PUCTO. He added that if the project were found to be successful,they would definitely support it further. “However,if it has failed,the project should be suspended,” he said.

V-C Narendra Jadhav refuted the fact that the reports have been called after the demands of PUTA and PUCTO. “It is absolutely wrong to ask for a social audit of the work that is done voluntarily,” said Narendra Jadhav. He added that there is absolute transparency as far as expenses on SBA is concerned.

Meanwhile,the Brihan Maharashtra College of Commerce (BMCC) has already submitted its report. “We have adopted Oravade village near Pirangut and have undertaken health check-ups for female students,soil testing with the help of farmers,developed a library of 600 books in the pre-primary school and have released the history of the village,” said principal Anirudddha Deshpande.

Every college teacher was given training on how to go about the 12-point agenda of the project. The project called for work to be done on soil and water testing in villages,energy conservation measures,details of flora and fauna,development of a library and playground,Nirmal Gram Yojana,micro finance,women’s self help groups,GIS mapping,vocational and technical development and the preparation of a written history of villages. The circular also asks for a report if work on any of the above-mentioned points is not done. Colleges have also been asked to attach photos with the report and mention details of work done in villages outside the purview of SBA