The Vasundhara Raje-led government has decided to shut down Haridev Joshi University of Journalism and Mass Communication, a pet project of former chief minister Ashok Gehlot. The government has already directed the university to stop admissions nearly a month after it had invited applications for the new session. “We have decided to shut down the university. There is absolutely no need for it. We already have a journalism department in Rajasthan University with full-fledged staff and students. What is the point in running another university for the same thing? It is a sheer waste of resources. There are only 40 students in this university. Why should we waste crores of rupees on running such elaborate machinery?” Higher Education Minister Kalicharan Saraf told The Indian Express. [related-post] “The Gehlot government, in a bid to please some people and as a populist measure before the assembly elections, announced this university without even doing basic homework. No study was done to work out its requirement and feasibility. It was a very bad idea,” he added. “This is not America where you can simply waste crores of rupees,” he said. Saraf said the admission process was stopped to ensure that a new batch of students was not affected. “As for the ongoing batches, we will shift them to Rajasthan University’s journalism department. We will not compromise on their future. As for the staff, we will accommodate the permanent faculty and ask the temporary ones to pack up.” The university came into existence after a Bill to the effect was passed by the state assembly in August 2012. The first batch of 40 students in the two-year print and electronic media courses will graduate this December, while another batch of students in their first year is still running. Last year, the university had expanded its courses and introduced a public relations and advertising course. There are nine teachers, out of whom three have been regularised and six are on probation. Those on probation were expected to be regularised over the next three months. The university was put under the scanner by the Vasundhara Raje government soon after it came to power on the grounds that all Gehlot’s projects announced six months before the 2013 assembly elections would be reviewed. Though several other projects including three other universities — Sardar Patel Police University in Jodhpur, Rajiv Gandhi Tribal University in Udaipur and Ambedkar Law University in Jaipur — were also under the scanner, only the journalism university has been axed. Reacting to the decision, Gehlot said: “It is unfortunate. They seem to have completely lost the plot. This is a politically motivated decision. They have stalled all our projects, be it the Jaipur Metro, refinery in Barmer, or other schemes and development projects.” Sunny Sebastian, university's Vice-Chancellor, said, “Closure of a university is unheard of. Our students are doing very well across the country. When we sent out our students as interns they got great reviews. The university was becoming popular.”
