Kannada organisations have urged the State government to set up a constituent engineering college on the Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) campuses in Belagavi or Kalaburagi.
This follows the announcement by Higher Education Minister M.C. Sudhakar that the State government will set up an engineering college in Chintamani, his hometown.
A delegation of the coordination committee of Kannada organisations met the Minister on Saturday and submitted a memorandum.
“A government college helps meritorious students from poor families as the fee is just around 10% of that charged in private colleges. Also, the academic influence of professors of post-graduate courses in VTU will help improve the quality of graduate education,” the memorandum said.
They also demanded the setting up of a hi-tech laboratory and an incubation centre to help students turn their projects into enterprises.
“Various industries in Belagavi, Hubballi Dharwad and other North Karnataka districts can work with teachers to mentor students into entrepreneurs, in the incubation centre,” the delegates said.
“Of the 16 government colleges and three aided colleges in the State, only four are in North Karnataka in Haveri, Gadag, Karwar and Davangere. VTU is situated on around 200 acres in Belagavi. Its Kalyan Karnataka campus in Kalaburagi has 70 acres. But both the campuses do not have government engineering colleges. Demand for an on-campus engineering college in VTU in Belagavi has been pending for over two decades.” Mr. Chandaragi said.
“Chintamani is within 45 kilometres of Muddenahalli, the birthplace of Sir M. Visvesvaraya, where VTU has set up a full-fledged campus. Chintamani is also 80 km away from Bengaluru where half the engineering colleges in the State are situated. It will be unfair that Chintamani gets a government engineering college and not Belagavi,” the delegation said.
“Mr. Sudhakar refused to believe us when we said VTU does not have an engineering college on campus. But we made him see our point,” retired professor of mathematics Tamraparni Venkatesh, who was present during the conversation, said.
“I have been living here for 40 years. I do not think that there is an engineering college in VTU. You have to believe me,” is what I told him, said Prof. Venkatesh.
