Last year, the Jawaharlal Nehru University had approved setting up a school of engineering and claimed that it will start functioning within six months. The school started functioning but it has been facing constant anger from the students who complained that they are facing infrastructural issues with the school including the lack of a dedicated building.
As of now, 104 students have enrolled in two programs namely Computer Science and Electronics and Communication Engineering. Earlier in May, Rector II Satish Garkoti in a statement had said that the admissions would begin in July and the infrastructure for the school is available.
However, students enrolled in the engineering programs claimed that their classes are being held at the Convention Center and their labs at the School of Computer & Systems Sciences. “We have a timetable, but teachers never follow it. We have to always be prepared because at any point, we get an SMS saying that a class will be held in an hour. Also, in our class, there are 31 students, but there are only 29 computers. The other two have been told to get their own laptops,” claimed a student.
Another student alleged that since the school was new, the JNU library does not have books on engineering and they are forced to buy new books every month : “We spend close to Rs 3,000 per semester on books alone…. We’re already paying over Rs 60,000 per semester — more than any other course — but what benefits are we getting?”
Students said that they have raised the issue with the dean but to no avail.
Dean R K Agarwal, however, claimed that he was not informed of any of such problems. “I have been meeting the students, there’s no such issue that they have brought up. There’s no problem of labs or computers. Classes are taking place at the Convention Center, because we don’t have classes big enough in any other School to accommodate so many students while the school is being built,” he said.