Delhi University allocates 67 crore to set up WiFi networks on campuses

Delhi University allocates Rs 67.71 crore across all its college campuses, including the upcoming girls’ hostel in northwest Delhi’s Mukherjee Nagar, to provide free WiFi to students.

Delhi University’s 90 colleges will get WiFi connectivity in both north and south campuses.

The project was funded from the loan corpus of Rs 938.33 crore taken by the varsity from the Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA) in October last year to undertake various development projects.

The HEFA sanctioned a loan of Rs 261.33 crore to set up the WiFi network to begin the construction work of a building for the Faculty of Technology.

What is HEFA?
HEFA stands for Higher Education Financing Agency and it is a Canara Bank and the Ministry of Education’s joint venture company providing financial assistance for the development of education infrastructure and research facilities in India’s top educational institutions.

The Delhi University had applied for the land from HEFA in 2022 to develop infrastructures and expansion including setting up DE’s east campus in Surjamal Vihar and opening a new college in Najafgarh among other projects.

On March 8, 2024, DU is likely to propose its idea to extend the two MPhil course’s validity till the academic year 2024-26 before the Executive Council of the varsity.

Last year Varsity had written to the University Grants Commission (UGC) to resume MPhil at the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS) as an interim arrangement for students till the Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI) makes the final decision, meeting’s agenda reveals.

The university took this initiative when the dean of the Faculty of Medical Science expressed his concern about this.

The Academic Council and Executive Council had discontinued MPhil programmes from the academic year 2022-24 in line with the National Education Policy 2020.

As per the UGC’s regulation for Minimum standards and procedures for the Award of PhD Degree, higher education institutes can no longer offer MPhil programmes.