Decline of an institution

Today, the University of Roorkee is plagued by a plethora of problems. The most serious of them is the institution’s inability to attract teachers. Of the total approved faculty strength of 615, around 160 posts are lying vacant, according to dean academic Prof A.K. Pant.

“The extra burden the lack of required faculty strength has imposed on the available teachers has badly affected the university’s teaching standards,” says Prof P.K. Swamee of the department of civil engineering.

The University has not been able to attract the required number of teachers for various reasons. One of them is the essential qualification of Ph.D, for the general as well as the reserved category candidates.

Even qualified people are not applying for teaching jobs as they prefer highly lucrative jobs in the industry. “The initial salary offered by the software industry to a bachelor of engineering (BE) is in the range of Rs 15,000-25,000, whereas an assistant professor with masters of engineering (ME) and Ph.D here gets the basic salary of Rs 3,700,” says Prof. M.P. Jain, who is in charge of the industrial consultation cell, placement and training.

Since not many people opt for Ph.D, and those who have Ph.D don’t prefer the university, Roorkee is virtually devoid of research activity both in the engineering and science streams. “Majority of university students do not opt for research because neither are they paid sufficient fellowship during the five-year research period nor is the Ph.D degree a guarantee for jobs”, says Snehamani Aggarwal, former president of the university’s forum of research scholars.

Prof. M.K. Vasanta of the department of electrical engineering strongly feels that like the IITs, the University of Roorkee should also have its own funds so that the research activities can be carried out without being dependent on the Government and its various scientific agencies.

Lack of infrastructure needed for research work is another serious problem students are forced to face and live with. “Non-availability of research journals in the university library has affected our research work,” says Adarsh Kumar, a research scholar associated with the physics department. “Sometimes we have to go as far as Delhi, Bangalore and Madras to consult national and international journals,” adds Kumar’s co-researcher Indrajit Singh.

What has further hampered research, students insist, are the obsolete machines and equipment in the university laboratories.

Add to it the indifference of the market to some of the disciplines, the tragedy of the university becomes complete. Take, for instance, its oldest, the biggest and the most reputed department of civil engineering which is credited with having created the country’s mammoth networks of railways, dams and waterways.“Fifty per cent of the students who pass out from the university’s department of civil engineering remain jobless due to the nationwide slump in the construction market,” Prof Swamee revealed.

What seems to have put this institution on the verge of redundancy is the inordinately big demand of its students in the software industry. If the teachers are to be believed, almost all the hardware students join the software industry just after graduation. “We are bound to have difficult times in future if timely efforts are not made to bring about changes in the university’s education system to suit the requirements of the global market”, warns Prof S. Ray of the department of metallurgical engineering.

Not that those managing the university are oblivious to the demands of the changing times. They say they are “absolutely helpless” because the country’s oldest technical institution happens to be a State university.The yearly funds provided to the University of Roorkee by the Uttar Pradesh government, according to the university administrators, are grossly insufficient. While the centrally-funded IIT in Delhi gets a yearly allocation of about Rs 50 crore, the University of Roorkee gets Rs 34 crore.Major portion of these funds goes for salaries and upkeep of the university and what remains for its development is “just peanuts”. Nor is the university administration allowed “operational flexibility” by the State government.

“Whether it is a question of replacing the redundant courses by the relevant ones or that of raising financial assistance given to the research scholars, we have to seek the State Government’s sanction everywhere,” says Pant.

He, however, adds the State Government is sympathetically considering the university’s proposal for being accorded real autonomy.

If that proposal, too, is entangled in the file kingdom in Lucknow, and if the present lackadaisical approach to research and academia don’t change, University of Roorkee will soon be another remnant of the Raj — a cluster of buildings for nostalgia.