BIT-Mesra is one of the two cradles that will receive Teqip funds

Ranchi, April 16: The state government has received funds to the tune of Rs 3.5 crore from the Centre under Phase II of the World Bank-sponsored Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (Teqip).

The grant, which will be available for use from the current fiscal itself, is meant for two Ranchi-based cradles only — deemed university Birla Institute of Technology (BIT)-Mesra and privately managed Cambridge Institute of Technology (CIT).

Interestingly, Dhanbad’s BIT-Sindri — the lone state- owned engineering college that was a strong contender — failed to qualify for the World Bank aid in the second phase, due to a number of reasons, which included inadequate student-teacher ratio and lack of permanent faculty members.

“The funds were received from the Centre last week. We have allocated the money to this fiscal’s budget,” state director (technical education) Arun Kumar confirmed to The Telegraph.

He added that while the funds for CIT had been cleared “to improve learning outcomes and employability of graduates”, that for the Mesra cradle was released under “scaling up postgraduate education and demand-driven research and development”.

Kumar said that the Centre was likely to release a total of Rs 16.5 crore — Rs 12.5 crore for BIT-Mesra and Rs 4 crore for CIT — in instalments.

“The cradles are likely to apply for the remaining installments in the near future,” the state director said.

Teqip, introduced in 2003, covered close to 127 technical schools across the country in its first phase. The programme has three phases spanning over 10-12 years.

It was extended to Jharkhand in 2004 and its execution began in July 2005. In the first phase, BIT-Mesra, BIT-Sindri and government polytechnic cradles at Ranchi and Dumka benefited from the World bank aid.

Meanwhile, Jharkhand High Court today again recommended the name of retired Justice Vikramaditya Prasad for the post of chairman of the fees fixation committee for technical institutes of the state.

The current fee structures of the state cradles would be in place till the end of the current academic session.

The new fee structure, to be recommended by the fee fixation committee, is likely to come into effect from the 2013-14 academic session for three years.