Jadavpur University will get ₹47 crore under the Rashtriya Uchchatara Shiksha Abhiyaan (RUSA 2.0), under one condition — that the university utilises the amount by March 31, an education department official said on Tuesday.

Sixty per cent of the grant will be provided by the Union government and the remaining by the state.

The funds will be routed through the state education department.

A meeting last week at Bikash Bhavan, the education secretariat, deliberated on how the university could get the money.

Of the ₹100 crore allotted for JU under the scheme, the university got ₹53 crore in 2019.

Vice-chancellor Chiranjib Bhattacharjee said they were deciding on the areas where the money could be utilised.

“The money is for us. The only condition is we have to spend the money by March 31,” said VC Bhattacharjee.

In November, Calcutta University got ₹35 crore under the scheme from the Union and state governments.

CU will spend the amount on instruments and research.

The JU vice-chancellor said they had plans to spend part of the amount to develop an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, which is an integrated software platform that centralises and automates administrative, financial, and student-related processes, replacing manual systems.

Bhattacharjee said though many small-scale institutes have developed their own ERP systems, JU did not have one.

The absence of the facility forced the university — acknowledged for its engineering education across the country — to rely on a manual system resulting in delays in result publication, a JU official said.

The official said any assessment agency like the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) examines, among other things, whether an institute possesses an ERP system that connects various departments to streamline operations like admissions, fee collection and results publication.

A JU official said the money could also be used to upgrade labs or institute scholarships.

“Teachers had submitted projects hoping that they would get the money under RUSA. As the release of funds was put on hold, the projects could not get going. Now funds could be allotted to some of the projects,” the official said.

On October 20, 2021, Metro reported that then VC Suranjan Das had alleged that JU had been left in the lurch as it did not receive the second instalment of the funds the Centre had promised under RUSA aimed at supporting research and upgrading infrastructure.

Das had then told this newspaper: “We made expenditures following an assurance that the support (from the Centre) would go on. Despite several reminders to the education ministry, the money has not come and we are not able to make reimbursements.”

A JU official said the resumption of funds could be a boon considering that the university was going through a crunch following cuts in the annual sanction from the state government and a fee structure which, according to many, is the lowest in the country.