IIEST Shibpur alumni starts campaign seeking release of funds from Centre
The signature campaign has been signed by more than 2,000 former students of IIEST Shibpur. A fund of INR 592 crore was approved at the time the Bengal Engineering and Science University (BESU) became IIEST in 2014. BESU was a state-aided university, while IIEST is run by the Centre.
A former IIEST Shibpur student now based in California in the US, who started an online signature campaign highlighting the persistent slide of the institute, has written to Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan saying “the institute is suffering owing to lack of funds approved by the parliament”.
The campaign, which has been signed by more than 2,000 former students of IIEST Shibpur, has sought to know from Dharmendra Pradhan whether his office would be “kind enough to approve the release of part of the fund approved by the parliament for upgradation of the academic and infrastructural facilities?", The Telegraph reported.
“We are sure that the Education Ministry under your leadership will not allow this heritage institution to perish for lack of government support and pass into oblivion,” said the appeal.
A copy of the appeal was also sent to the Union Minister of State for Education, Subhas Sarkar. Swapan Saha, who graduated from the Shibpur campus in 1988 in electrical engineering and is now based in California, started the campaign last month, days after IIEST teachers launched a “Save IIEST” campaign to protest the alleged absence of infrastructure, erratic recruitment process and absence of appropriate classrooms and laboratories at the IIEST.
Last year, a group of former IIEST students had met the chairperson of the institute’s board of governors to highlight that the institute had not received the funds that Parliament had approved for the upgrade and expansion of its infrastructure.
A fund of INR 592 crore had been approved at the time the Bengal Engineering and Science University (BESU) became IIEST in 2014. BESU was a state-aided university, while IIEST is run by the Centre.
The fund was supposed to be meant for the construction of academic complexes and hostels and repair of existing hostels. Calls and text messages to the IIEST director, Parthasarathi Chakrabarti, went unanswered. Minister of state Sarkar in a text message said: “We will go through the email on Wednesday."
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