Jamshedpur, Jan. 7: Scared of scam, National Institute of Technology (NIT), Jamshedpur, returned Rs 10 crore to the Centre for not being able to spend the amount within the deadline, December 31.
The Union ministry of human resource development is reported to have threatened to take back the remaining amount, another Rs 10 crore, that had been given to the NIT under the Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP), if the funds are not spent soon.
After regional engineering colleges were upgraded to the status of National Institute of Technology in 2001-02, the ministry had provided all the 17 NITs across the country, including NIT, Jamshedpur, a fund amounting to Rs 10 crore each for upgrading the institutes under TEQIP. In accordance with the norms, each of the NITs would be given another Rs 10 crore a year, subject to the spending the amount.
NIT, Jamshedpur, was given Rs 10 crore in 2002 and another grant of Rs 10 crore in 2003. With the funds, the NIT was expected to improve the standard of laboratory by purchasing latest equipment. But they did not utilise the funds despite repeated reminders by the Centre. The authorities continued to evade using the funds in fear of being implicated in any scam as some of their former colleagues had been in the past.
Several NIT officials had already been implicated in alleged scams that had originated from purchasing computers and furniture in the Nineties. Taking note of the attitude, the ministry had given an ultimatum in August last year to spend the first instalment of TEQIP fund by December 31, otherwise it would take back it.
With the deadline being over, the institute had to return the entire amount.
World Bank, the funding agency, has, however, sent a representative to the NIT to find out the bottleneck behind the funds not being spent for so long. A.K. Sinha, the representative, has been talking to teachers, heads of the departments and students about the problems in the NIT.
NIT director Akhileswar Mishra said: “There has been some setback for the institute to use the TEQIP fund.”
R.V. Sharma, the TEQIP co-ordinator, said the fund “was being spent and there was nothing to worry” about it.
