GANDERBAL: The 6th meeting of the Planning and Monitoring Board (PMB) and the 27th meeting of the University Building Committee (UBC) of the Central University of Kashmir (CUK) were held at Tulmulla Campus of the varsity on Wednesday with Vice Chancellor Prof. Mehraj ud Din Mir in chair.
Registrar, Prof. M Afzal Zargar, Controller of Examinations, Prof. Parveen Pandit, Finance Officer, Prof. Fayaz A Nikka, Director Research and Development, Prof. G M Bhat, Director, MPRC, Prof. Shahid Rasool, Deans of Schools, Heads and Coordinators of different departments, senior functionaries from the district and Union Territory administration, experts from diverse fields, and officials of the university were also present during both the meetings.
Addressing the participants present both offline and online mode, Vice Chancellor, Prof. Mehraj ud Din Mir said the varsity is leading and marching ahead on all academic fronts including research, teaching-learning, timely conduct of examination and declaration of results when compared with other central universities established with it.
“The university has been successful in maintaining and sustaining its academic and examination calendar despite turbulent conditions in the Valley,” he said adding that in spite of the country wide lockdown due to outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, the varsity completed the syllabi of the students, pursuing various programmes in the CUK, by continuously conducting online classes, distributing the teaching learning material and also has a distinction of holding offline End Semester Examinations recently for which, centres were established in degree colleges of almost every district of the Jammu and Kashmir, for the benefit of the students.
Prof. Mehraj ud Din Mir said that several senior faculty members from within and outside Jammu and Kashmir, have recently joined the university, which has further strengthened and boosted the research activities.
Prof. Mir said the university successfully conducted the Central Universities Common Entrance Test (CUCET-2020) in which as many as 8500 students participated in the test centres set up across Kashmir and Ladakh region.
He said that keeping in view the success of the programmes launched by the university, the varsity is launching more programmes including Masters in Social Work, M.A Kashmiri, B.PEd. and B.A Honours in Urdu from the academic session.
Prof. Mehraj ud Din Mir said the university plans to establish an information centre for the visually impaired library users, and has also received proposals from various departments for upgradation and creation of new facilities for the students.
Prof. Mehraj ud Din Mir, however, regretted that the university hasn’t been able to make any significant progress on the infrastructure front.
“The executing agencies for the project at Tulmulla have failed to stick to the deadlines causing inordinate delays in the construction of permanent structures,” he said, adding that the low load bearing capacity of the land and subsequent increase in the foundation cost has added to the woes.
He said the university was at present functioning from four different campuses including the designated Tulmulla campus in Ganderbal and its construction wing has set up and renovated the old structures in erstwhile district hospital and old physical education college, to make it usable for the students and faculty.
Prof, Mehraj ud Din Mir said the issues pertaining to the delays in construction have already been taken up with the senior functionaries of the Ministry of Education, Government of India.
He said that the Divisional Commissioner Kashmir recently took a review meeting of all the functionaries and instructed the senior officials in the Government to extend all possible support to the Central University in construction of buildings and allied works.
CUK Vice Chancellor said the district administration has recently identified an additional 100 kanals of land for the acquisition of which the varsity officials are in contact with the administration.
In both meetings, the participants discussed various issues threadbare and took decisions on different matters pertaining to academics and construction.
Registrar, Prof. M Afzal Zargar took up agenda items in both the meetings and welcomed the participants. He also informed the participants about the functioning of the university, particularly during the lockdown.
Finance Officer, Prof. Fayaz A Nikka proposed vote of thanks in both the meetings.