Bengaluru: Jindal Foundation has observed that no corrective measures are possible at this stage over setting up the Sitaram Jindal School of Economics at Bangalore University (BU) at an estimated cost of Rs 150 crore. It may be recalled that on Wednesday, the foundation had informed BU that it was withdrawing from the proposed School of Economics project in the light of some unwanted developments.
In an exclusive interview to Deccan Chronicle, K. R. Raghunath, Vice Chairman, Jindal Aluminium Limited, informed that no corrective measures were possible at this stage, since vested interests were playing mischief by trying to scuttle this project.
“We had to take the decision to withdraw our proposal of establishing the Sitaram Jindal School of Economics in view of a few troublemakers in the Bangalore University Syndicate, who were hell-bent on scuttling this noble project right from the beginning. Even though we never asked for ownership of this school, they started bogus issues such as the following: that we are interested in land; the school should be autonomous; commercialization of education, etc. All these allegations are unfounded. We never asked for any land from the University, we never wanted autonomous status and we were not interested in running the institution,” he said.
“Our only demand was that the building would be built as per Bangalore University requirements at our cost, and under our supervision, by a contractor to be finalised by us. We even invited the Bangalore University civil department to be a member of the quality committee. We asked for five seats to be reserved for girls from economically weaker sections of society. For these five students, our Trust was ready to pay the fees and meet all other conditions, including admission criteria. Even this request was unnecessarily twisted by projecting the wrong information that our Trust wanted control over all the seats. That rumour is unfounded,” he said.
Raghunath pointed out that the entire Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was in the public domain, open to anybody. “Still a few Syndicate members were spreading false information mischievously. These miscreants with an ulterior motive have continuously spread malicious propaganda, which has hurt our Trust deeply. Furthermore, these malicious members of the Syndicate even hired unscrupulous people in the guise of agitation by students’ union, just to spoil our name. If this is the situation even before signing the agreement, imagine what could happen once we start the construction of the building. In view of the above, we had no option but to withdraw from the project with sadness,” he added.
“Throughout this entire episode, we honestly appreciated the sincere efforts of the present Vice Chancellor, Registrar and other senior academicians of Bangalore University who took a keen interest in this project without any selfish motive. The University extended full support and cooperation for this proposal and we have all praise for the Vice Chancellor for his efforts in trying to convince the Syndicate members and the media. At this stage, we feel that there are no corrective measures possible,” he added.
“We have got many offers from other Universities and from other states also. We are evaluating these proposals too,” he concluded.
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