BU allots Rs.273 crore budget for this academic yr

Bangalore University has announced the budget of Rs 273 crore for this academic year 2013-14. BU allots budget for several ambitious infrastructure projects. This is an increase from the lst year's budget, which was approximately Rs 230 crore.

BU Finance officer, R. Ramanna said in a meeting, there was a deficit of around Rs 5 crore. "We had asked State government for an allocation oof RS 110 crore, but only Rs 67 crore was sanctioned.

He also said that the university's income was from the examination fees, penalty, affiliation charges and building rent. "A lion's share of the budget goes for payment of wages and development works,"

BU allots around Rs 110.77 crore to employee salaries. This year university will focus primarily on security measures on the campus, besides completing construction works.

Rs 3 crore set aside for the security of students, particularly for girls on the Jnana Bharathi Campus. From this allocation, rs 2 crore will go for erecting barricades along the boundaries and Rs 1 crore for installing CCTV cameras across the campus, especially near the hostels.

Beginning with Rs 1 crore principal amount for construction of buildings at the Ramanagaram Postgraduate Centres as it is the university's only PG centre, the budget also allots money for the construction of hostels for girls, backward classes and minorities and northeast students.

Vice-Chencellor, B Thimme Gowda said, "We are planning to instal solar lamps at Jnana Bharathi campus so that no place goes unlit at night. We have noticed that even those staying in the university quarters do not feel safe to walk here at night. This has to be charged,"

"Due to security reasons, we may not be able to make the entire campus Wi-Fi enabled, but we are looking at important places needed to placed in different departments," the VC said.

Around Rs 1.3 crore has been allocated for upgrading the library. The university plans to procure more books, e-journals and an array of periodicals. The library will also see an upgraded IT centre.

Two new women's hostels, one men's hostels for commerce students, two hostels for northeast students ans a new building for the foreign languages department are some of the projects expected to be taken up this year.