Mumbai: Two months on, Kalina campus’s new buildings lie empty

Two months since their grand inauguration four new buildings constructed on the Kalina campus of Mumbai University are still not being used for a simple reasonmdashthey lack furniture According to a student activist the new buildings mdashtwo hostels an examination hall and a librarymdashwere hurriedly inaugurated since ViceChancellor Suhas Pednekarrsquos tenure was coming to an end on September 10On July 8 Governor of Maharashtra and Chancellor of public universities in the state Bhagat Singh Koshyari inaugurated the four new buildings The buildings had been ready for some time but their occupation certificates OC were received by the administration only 10 days ahead of the inaugurations officials saidA room inside the new library buildingIn the first week of March 2022 former minister of higher and technical education Uday Samant had said that the new library building would be operational from March 15 The minister held a meeting with officials of the university and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation BMC to understand the status of different developmental plan works for the Kalina campus which are incomplete A nodal officer from BMC was appointed to ensure rapid project movementThe new buildingsThe library also known as the GyanStrot Kendra is a twostorey building The exam and administration building Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Bhavan is a sevenstorey structure that houses the offices of the Vice Chancellor ProVice Chancellor and other administrative authorities as well as examination staff The international studentsrsquo hostel is a sixstorey structure with 85 rooms for 146 students The girlsrsquo hostel includes 72 rooms to accommodate 144 studentsAlso Read Mumbai 22yearold Borivli student loses Rs 96000 to electricity bill fraudldquoI am planning to write to the governor on this issue Already the inauguration and opening of the new buildings were deferred multiple times due to the nonissuance of the occupancy certificate With so much delay the administration should have completed everything Why the rush Was it to ensure that the buildings were inaugurated before the former Vice Chancellorrsquos tenure ended It seems the authorities wanted to ensure their name on the inaugural plaque Nonissuance of OC was not preventing or restricting them from floating tenders for furniture This one thing has been preventing these buildings from being operationalrdquo said former university student Ashish Dwivedi who is also a student activist from Chatra Yuva Sangharsh SamitiThe tender for furniture for the international studentsrsquo hostel was floated on July 20 12 days after the inauguration and the tender for the new Knowledge Resource Centre the library building was floated on August 10 over a month after the inaugurationThe tender period for both is three months ldquoThis shows that until the work on furniture is done these buildings will not be operationalrdquo Dwivedi saidlsquoWorks done by WelukarrsquoldquoThis practice of inaugurating buildings and infrastructure and then leaving them inoperational for months was only in rush to ensure that the names of the VC and other officials appear on the plaque before their tenure ended However according to records majority of the important works and sanctions for them were completed during the tenure of previous Vice Chancellor Rajan Welukar It was during his term that contractors were appointed During Suhas Pednekarrsquos term no important work was done Besides it took over three to three and half years to just get the OCrdquo said Pradeep Sawant senate member and member of the university Management Council Welukar retired from the university in 2015ldquoThere was no deadline things were dependent on the OC and there was no way we could have started furniture work without it Besides as soon as we got the OC we planned the inauguration The current administration worked very hard to get all sanctions and planning for these new development plans There was no rushrdquo said a senior university official