Univer

Univ sity of Delhi

ersity
The New Millennium: A New Beginning
2000-2005

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 © 2005 University of Delhi

Photographs: Vijaya S Varma

Design: Parthiv Shah, cmac@vsnl.com
Printing: Archana Press

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 Preface

The spread of education in society is at the foundations of success

in countries that are latecomers to development. In the quest for
development, primary education is absolutely essential because it
creates the base. But higher education is just as important, for it
provides the cutting edge. And Universities are the life blood of
higher education. Islands of excellence, say in professional education,
are valuable complements but cannot be substitutes for Universities
which provide educational opportunities to people at large.

In the new millennium, almost fifty years after independence, the

role of Universities in India is even more critical. There is a dramatic
increase in the aspirations of people for higher education, which is
a consequence of demographic change and rapid urbanization. The
massive expansion of school education, combined with the near-
absence of alternative educational opportunities for school-leavers,
is also responsible for the exponential increase in the number of
young people seeking places at Universities. Educating large
numbers and maintaining high standards is the need of the times.

The potential for economic development and social progress in India

over the next twenty-five years is enormous. Indeed, it is widely
believed that India is poised for a giant leap forward. The
transformation of economy and society in the twenty-first century,
however, would depend upon the spread and the quality of
education among our people, particularly in the sphere of higher
education.

This is, obviously, an important conjuncture for Universities in India.

In keeping with the vision of our leaders and the aspirations of our
people, for India in the twenty-first century, it has been our

3
 endeavour to make a new beginning at the University of Delhi.
And the past five years have been a crucial, as also rewarding,
period of development for us.

Academic reforms have been at the centre of our endeavour. We

have sought to strengthen the teaching-learning process, in
particular through the introduction of internal assessment. This
has been reinforced by a restructuring of curricula. Undergraduate
programmes, which had not changed for decades, have been
restructured. Several new courses have been introduced. In a world
characterized by rapidly expanding frontiers of knowledge, such
change is imperative.

This academic renaissance must be supported by the requisite

infrastructure. In this sphere, we have taken important strides in
mobilizing resources for the creation of new infrastructure that would
meet our needs for the next quarter century. Connectivity has been
established through a campus-wide computer-network. Academic
complexes, with teaching and research facilities have been built.
Hostel accommodation, particularly for women students, has been
increased by more than fifty per cent. State-of-the-art conference
facilities are in place. We have also created new spaces for utilities
and social interaction for the campus community.

We recognize that it is just as important to maintain our existing

infrastructure and buildings. It is important to build but it is just as
important to maintain. For this purpose, too, we have mobilized
resources. The restoration of heritage buildings at the University is
an integral part of this effort.

Institutions, as much as individuals, are constrained by laws of

inertia, which makes change difficult. Therefore, it takes an enormous
collective effort to re-energize a large academic community. We

4
have accomplished this in large and substantive measure during
the period from 2000 to 2005. The outcome is visible. There are
systemic changes across-the-board. What is more, these are
sustainable changes, as there is a commitment and an ownership
on the part of the stakeholders.

Such far-reaching changes would not have been possible, indeed

not even thinkable, without participation and partnership of the
University community as a whole. An ever-widening circle of
concerned persons, representing various constituents of the
University community, par ticipated in and contributed to
institutional change in their respective domains. Indeed, the
partnerships extended beyond the University community to the
world outside. Distinguished academics contributed ideas. Civil
society provided strong support. The University Grants Commission,
the Government of Delhi, the Government of India and several
others provided valuable contributions to our efforts at resource
mobilisation.

The time has come for us to think big and think long. This is easer
said than done in public institutions, which are characterized by
inertia and cynicism. Hence, it is essential to focus on hope rather
than despair. For a better world is possible. But there are no magic
wands. And there are no messiahs. What it needs is good leadership
and cohesive team work, combined with a determination to help
ourselves. In this pursuit, as a collective, we were able to do much
more than might have been expected. Yet, it is essential to recognize
that striving for excellence is a continuous process. Destinations
and aspirations must move up over time. Hence, these changes
are a beginning and not the end. We have miles to go.

The University of Delhi is reclaiming its leadership role in higher

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 education in India. We would like to be a role model and path-
setter for other Universities. There are three dimensions to this
vision. First, we want to provide undergraduates with educational
opportunities that are at par with the best in the world. Second,
we want to capture the synergies between teaching and research,
which enrich each other, since it is often forgotten that Universities
are the natural home for research. Third, we want to provide an
intellectual space that is not constrained by the sharply drawn
boundaries between subjects or departments, for knowledge is
developing at the intersection of disciplines.

The beginning of a millennium or the turn of a century are important

watersheds, which are time for reflection and introspection. This
short essay is an exercise in the same spirit. It is about a new
beginning at the University of Delhi during the first quinquennium
of the new millennium. It seeks to highlight glimpses of what we
have achieved during the past five years. It is not meant to provide
a systematic or comprehensive account of the period. The following
pages describe the outcome of our collective effort at the University
of Delhi. This short book is also the outcome of a similar team
effort on the part of Professor C.R. Babu, Dr. Kiran Datar, Professor
Deepak Pental, Professor Shyam Menon, Professor Sampat Tandon
and Professor Vijaya Varma. Most of the burden of work, however,
was borne by Professor Shyam Menon. He found the time and made
the effort, for this good cause, despite so many prior claims on his
time. It is not just his clarity. It is his sense of engagement with,
care for, and belonging to the University of Delhi that comes across
in the text. This book would not have been possible without him.

DEEPAK NAYYAR
1 May 2005
st
Vice Chancellor

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 The University

T he University of Delhi, which began life in 1922 with just

three colleges and 750 students, has become one of India’s major
institutions of higher learning addressing the ever-increasing
aspirations of her people for tertiary education of acceptable
quality and relevance. In this process, the University has itself
grown and diversified phenomenally over the past decades. With
its 78 colleges, 84 postgraduate departments, over 300,000 students
and about 7,000 teachers, the University of Delhi is now the
largest in India and among the largest in the world. The University
runs undergraduate, postgraduate and research programmes, in
liberal disciplines, in professions and in interdisciplinary and
applied areas. The University has through these eighty years
created and sustained a number of world-class centres of
undergraduate education. It has also demonstrated its excellence
in research and postgraduate education in many disciplines. It
has been home to a large and vibrant academic community, at
the forefront in the generation and transaction of new ideas, active
in various departments of public life. Each of the past decades
has had its expectations from the University of Delhi. The
University on its part has been able to adapt, transform and gear
itself to incorporate these expectations into its institutional
agenda, struggling all the while not to compromise its essential
characteristic as a centre of excellence in higher education.

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 Challenges and Opportunities

T he new millennium brought with it new challenges to the

University of Delhi. Much of that had to do with the growing
and diversifying aspirations of young people and the need to make
their engagement with the University as meaningful and as
appropriate to the times as possible. This was the first challenge
of transforming and updating curricula and initiating a process
of academic reforms. Many postgraduate departments were
severely understaffed with a large number of positions lying
vacant. There was a need for embarking on faculty recruitment
almost on a war footing. While doing this, it was also necessary
to attract the best talent available in the country and abroad to a
career in the University of Delhi. This was the second challenge.
The University’s physical infrastructure was proving inadequate
to meet the needs of the growing numbers. It was also in a state
of disrepair. The campus was calling out for a drastic expansion
of building space and restoration and renovation of the existing
buildings and facilities. The campus also needed to be given a
face-lift to create a milieu conducive to a vibrant social and cultural
environment. There was also a need for better classrooms, seminar
rooms and laboratories, with all the necessary modern equipment
and amenities. All these put together constituted the third
challenge.

The postgraduate campus of the University has grown

phenomenally over the decades. However, the Departments have
become somewhat inward looking in their preoccupation with
teaching and research in their own respective areas. There have

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been very few occasions and platforms for the larger academic
community of the whole campus and the colleges to congregate
in an atmosphere of collegiality. A fourth challenge was therefore
to energize the overall academic environment on the campus
through the creation of large academic platforms and events for
the entire campus community to participate in, and through the
setting up of structures within interdisciplinary spaces for
collaborative efforts at research and teaching across departments.

The budget constraint was becoming dominant, as there were

not enough resources for maintenance, let alone for development.
It was imperative that the University persuade the University
Grants Commission to allocate more resources, and look beyond
the UGC to mobilize resources for all these ambitious
developmental plans. This was the fifth challenge.

In a short span of time, five years, we sought to transform these

challenges into opportunities. And, this we did through a process
that involved participation of, and thus generating a sense of
ownership among, the various components of the University
community. The transformative process was carried out in a way
that ensured their sustainability, by bringing about legislative
changes and building in new processes and provisions into the
administrative and governance structures, and above all by
creating broad consensus among the critical actors. In what
follows, we attempt to present glimpses of some of our efforts to
address these challenges.

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 Academic Reforms

T he academic processes constitute the core of the University.

Among the millennium initiatives, the highest priority was
attached to academic reforms. To strengthen teaching and
learning, it became necessary to transform the very core of the
academic processes, an evaluation system which depended entirely
on annual examinations. In July 2003, the University introduced
a system of internal assessment as an integral part of the evaluation
system. The internal assessment system comprised class tests, in-
house examinations, written assignments, tutorials, project
reports, term papers, seminars and fieldwork, and carried a total
weightage of 25%. To make this elaborate evaluation system work
according to laid down procedures and schedules, it was necessary
to put in place certain critical structures, such as monitoring
committees both at the College and at the University level.

In order to ensure that there were the requisite 180 teaching days
every year, a six-day teaching week was re-introduced with effect
from July 2003. Also, it was legislated that teaching would
commence on July 16th and would end not earlier than March
23rd. The system of tutorials and preceptorials was strengthened.
Mentoring by teachers was institutionalized. A system of
academic monitoring and supervision, and student-faculty
committees was introduced essentially to ensure that the academic
processes are organized effectively.

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 Restructuring Academic Programmes

T he largest academic programmes of the University of Delhi

are its undergraduate programmes. Most of these had not
undergone changes, except superficially, for decades. The
University, therefore, began the process of curricular
transformation giving priority to those programmes where change
was most needed. The BA (Pass) programme underwent a
structural transformation into the new BA programme. Similarly,
the BA (Honours), BCom (Honours), BSc (General), BSc
(Honours) programmes were transformed.

BA Programme: The much neglected BA (Pass) programme

underwent a substantial change when a new BA was launched in
July 2004. This was an initiative with enormous importance, in
the sense the restructured programme enables students to have a
solid grounding in some disciplines, acquire linguistic skills and
foundational knowledge in certain critical areas and be equipped
with some skills to enter the world of work. What undoubtedly
is the University’s largest teaching programme, affecting some
50,000 students in colleges and more than 100,000 in the open
and distance learning system, had stagnated over five decades. It
was replaced by a restructured programme after a two year long
consultation involving teachers, students and experts. The new
programme has a structure that includes foundation courses,
language courses, discipline courses and application courses. While
the foundation courses focus on such themes as social inquiry
and contemporary India, the application courses cater to a variety
of interests such as creative writing, music, theatre, disaster
management, entrepreneurship, etc. The new BA programme
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 has generated a great deal of excitement and has been welcomed
by teachers, students and the community at large as a relevant
and attractive programme, the first of its kind in India.

BA (Honours) Programme: The programme structure of BA

(Honours) was transformed without altering the structure or
substance of the courses in the main subjects, which were left to
the respective departments to revise from time to time. The
erstwhile language and subsidiary courses, which were non-credit
courses, were made integral to the programme structure in the
form of concurrent courses that are credited. The restructured
programme includes, besides courses in the main disciplines which
account for about 80% weightage, concurrent courses of about
20% weightage which are based on disciplines, languages, literature
and interdisciplinary themes, and which support the study of
the major discipline, rendered in an attractive and relevant manner
to a non-specialist student.

The BA (Honours) programme was transformed in a manner

that would enable (1) generation of broad-based knowledge
grounded in interdisciplinary understanding, (2) inculcation of
awareness of the crucial issues faced by society and (3)
development of informed and socially aware citizens as well as
scholars who possess academic excellence.

BSc Programmes: Exciting developments in the field of science

and available opportunities at workplace have made it imperative
that the undergraduate science courses be redesigned to take into
account emerging trends and the professional aspirations of young
students. The boundaries between different domains of science
have become fuzzy; the more exciting developments are being

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reported from areas at the interfaces of disciplines. In response
to the changes taking place in society, the University of Delhi
has undertaken a major restructuring exercise for its science
courses. The underlying principle was that the undergraduate
science education must provide students with (1) a broad-based
exposure to the critical domains of sciences, i.e., Physics,
Chemistry, Biology, in both single science domain and multiple
science domain modes, (2) adequate background of mathematical
sciences, and tools and techniques of computer applications,
modern instrumentation, electronics and analytical techniques,
(3) skills in technical writing and communication skills, (4)
adequate exposure to global and local concerns that explore the
many aspects of societal relevance in environmental science, and
(5) opportunity to explore the multi-disciplinarity of science,
particularly in emerging areas that lie at the intersections of
physical, chemical, life and earth sciences including such cutting-
edge areas like astrobiology, theoretical biology, geophysics,
molecular palaeontololgy, biogeochemistry, etc.

What was called the BSc (General) programme has been radically
restructured. It offers a combination of three science disciplines,
mixed judiciously to permit studies in physical science, life science
and applied science and of interest to students seeking a broad-
based exposure to science. The first year of study consisting of
foundation courses is common to all students and provides
exposure to essentials of Physics, Chemistry, Life Sciences and
Mathematics. The course provides hands-on exposure to tools
and techniques of science and develops generic core competencies
in use of computers, modern laboratory instruments and data
handling techniques critical for understanding the empirical
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 nature of science. It also includes formal courses on technical
writing and communication skills in English and provides
opportunities for addressing issues of societal concern through a
course on Environmental Science. The second and third years
allow diversification through study of carefully designed
combinations of three disciplinary domains of science. Students
would be able to add value to their degree by choosing from a
range of electives of multidisciplinary interest, including those
from Humanities. The teaching strategies and the accompanying
evaluation and assessment are befittingly interactive; the
laboratory component in particular has fifty percent weightage
reserved for internal assessment.

The University is also launching a new honours programme titled

BSc in Biological Sciences. In significant contrast to the existing
BSc (Honours) in Botany and Zoology, the new programme
introduces Biology from the contemporary perspective wherein
it is viewed as an integrated universal science, emphasizing the
functional unity underlying structural diversity in living
organisms. This course will, again, have a common foundation
course in the first year, as designed for the other new BSc
programmes.

BCom (Honours) Programme: The BCom (Honours) programme

also underwent a thorough revision. The revised BCom
(Honours) programme has three distinguishing features: (1) The
21 courses that constitute the programme include applied language
courses, which are credited. New courses like ‘Politics, Ethics
and Social Responsibility of Business’ would need involvement
of teachers of political science, philosophy, etc. (2) There are

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greater Information Technology inputs. This includes IT inputs
in many of the compulsory courses such as accounting, statistics,
income tax, etc., along with two optional groups of IT courses in
the final year. There are two compulsory papers on computers.
There is also a practical component of computer work. (3) The
programme enables a college to offer its students the opportunity
of earning credits for a project report based on summer
attachments in business organizations.

BA (Vocational Studies) programme has been restructured and

revised in view of the changes in the employment market. The
restructured programme has seven streams, including tourism,
management and marketing of insurance, small and medium
enterprises, and human resource management. Each of these
streams has a foundation course on computer and business
communication and four language courses. In addition, the
programme contains four vocational courses and three
interdisciplinary courses in each of the seven streams.

New Programmes: A new MBA (Services) programme was started

in the South Campus with a view to addressing the longstanding
need for a good management degree programme for the service
sectors. Several other new programmes have been initiated in
the past five years, some of them in interdisciplinary and applied
areas. In some cases, the initiative has come from colleges that
transact these programmes. They include BSc (Honours)
Computer Science, BSc (Honours) Polymer Science, BSc
(Honours) Biological Sciences, BA (Honours) Modern European
Languages, BE (Biotechnology), BE (Information Technology),
MSc (Computer Science), MA/MSc in Environmental Studies,

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 PG Diploma in Conflict Transformation and Peace Building,
MPhil (Clinical Psychology) and MPhil (Environmental Studies).

Course Transformations: The past five years saw many

departments coming forward and undertaking major
transformations in the structures of the courses they have been
offering. The University instituted a system of peer evaluation
of new course structures, syllabi and reading lists, involving
expertise from outside the University. This created an
opportunity for ensuring prior quality audit of the new course
structures by the larger professional community. Several
departments took their undergraduate honours programmes
through a process of major revision, e.g., BA (Honours) courses
in History, English, Economics, Sociology, Punjabi, Business
Economics, Applied Psychology, and BSc (Honours) courses in
Geology, Anthropology, Botany, Zoology, Microbiology,
Polymer Science, and Home Science. Several other programmes
also underwent structural transformations, e.g., BA (Pass) Home
Science, BSc (General) Sericulture, BSc (General) Computer
Science, BLibSc, MLibSc, MSc (Electronics), MSc (Plant
Molecular Biology and Biotechnology), MCom, MA (Political
Science), MA (English), MA (Punjabi), MA/MSc (Applied
Operational Research), MTech (Microwave Electronics), MIB,
MHROD, Certificate/Diploma/Advanced Diploma in
Portuguese Language, Certificate/ Diploma/ Advanced Diploma
in Korean Language, PG Diploma in International Marketing,
Diploma in Business Journalism and Corporate Communication,
and MPhil (Education). Modifications have been made in many
courses under various programmes, keeping in perspective the
emerging trends.
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 Improvements in Admission Procedure

A dmission to undergraduate programmes had been an

enormously cumbersome process. A candidate trying for
admission to a variety of courses in a number of colleges had
always had to go through the highly tedious process of visiting
individual colleges and making separate applications. A
computerized system of centralized admission was initiated in
2004. Under this system, a candidate can now use one pre-
admission form to exercise his/her choice for as many colleges
as desired. The centralized form obviates the necessity of moving
from college to college in the hot
summer months and filling up
forms in each college. The
centralized forms are scanned at the
University and the data are
transmitted to the colleges where
the candidate seeks admission. This
system was hailed as a brave new
step forward by civil society. One other innovation which has
been introduced during the last five years has been the system of
Open Days, where University officials provide information on
courses, colleges and admission procedures, and clarify doubts
and misconceptions about the admission process among
prospective candidates and their parents. The University has also
introduced a system of reservation for candidates with physical
disabilities. Care has also been taken through a centralized
procedure to streamline the admission of candidates belonging
to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.

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 New Dimensions in Research

T he University of Delhi has a glorious tradition of research

and advanced studies in various disciplines. There are many
Departments of Special Assistance and Centres of Advanced Study
of the UGC in the various faculties of the University. The UGC
continued to assist these Departments through the Ninth and
the Tenth Plan periods. The upgradation of the Department of
Education as the Institute of Advanced Studies in Education
(IASE) and the Maulana Azad Centre for Elementary and Social
Education (MACESE) by the Ministry of Human Resource
Development, Government of India was institutionalized when
the UGC was persuaded to assimilate the faculty positions under
the IASE scheme into the maintenance grant of the University
on the conclusion of the Ninth Plan period. While the older
science departments continued to make their mark as leaders in
their respective fields, some of the newer departments,
particularly those in life sciences, earned accolades for their work
in the very frontiers of science and its applications.

Sciences:
The past five years saw several significant new research projects
in progress, some of them making important contributions
furthering the knowledge horizon. The science departments have
been particularly active in this matter.

Scientists at the Department of Plant Molecular Biology

successfully participated in the international consortium on rice
genome sequencing. The project was funded at the national level
by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India. The

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Department of Plant Molecular Biology is currently involved in
sequencing a non-pathogenic Mycobacterium strain for
developing a vaccine in the long run.

The Department of Biochemistry successfully developed a test

to detect HIV (AIDS) in a drop of blood. The Naked Eye Visible
Agglutination assay or NEVA is an instrumentation free test with
no need of electricity, and is one of the very few tests in the
world that can be performed on whole blood, even from a finger
prick. The technology of NEVA HIV has won several awards.

The Centre for Genetic Manipulation of Crop Plants and

Department of Genetics at the University of Delhi South Campus
have developed two hybrids in mustard DMH-1 and DMH-
11which have, on an average, 30% more of productivity over the
best national varieties of mustard. These hybrids are currently
being tested in farmer’s field. The commercial production of the
hybrid seed will begin from the year 2006. The research on
development of these hybrids has been supported by the National
Dairy Development Board.

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 Scientists at the Centre for Environmental Management of
Degraded Ecosystems (CEMDE) have been involved in the
development of site-specific and locality-specific restoration
technologies for the revegetation of highly degraded landscapes
such as morrum mined-out areas, overburden dumps of Bhatti
mines and extremely desertified land of the Asola wildlife
sanctuary in Delhi. The technology package developed has now
been transferred to the Department of Forests of the Government
of Delhi. CEMDE provides the necessary training to the eco-
taskforce established by the Department of Forests, and also gives
assistance with regard to the inputs needed for the rehabilitation
programme. CEMDE has collaborated with the Delhi
Development Authority in the establishment and maintenance
of the Yamuna Biodiversity Park and the Aravalli Biodiversity
Park, which are meant to recreate and preserve the lost natural
heritage of Delhi. The mission of these Biodiversity Parks is to
serve as repository and heritage of the biodiversity of the Yamuna
river basin and the Aravalli ranges, with ecological, cultural and
educational benefits to society.

Scientists at the Delhi College of Engineering (DCE) have

developed a bio-diesel that can be used as fuel for passenger cars.
The design of high capacity bio-diesel reactors of up to 2000 litres
is in progress. Another DCE innovation in the energy sector is
the development of a liquid nitrogen fuelled reciprocating engine.

One of the important recent achievements of the scientists in the

Department of Chemistry, who have been doing extensive
research in the development of nanoparticles-based drug delivery
technologies, is the development of a reverse micelles based
process for the synthesis of hydrogel and ‘smart’ hydrogel
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nanoparticles for encapsulating water-soluble drugs. This
technology has been patented in India and the US. This
laboratory has also developed an ophthalmic formulation of
NSAID drugs for which it has got patents in India and the US.
The group is now working on nanotechnologies which have
applications in enzyme therapy, treatment for leukemia, and a
drug-less therapeutic process without side-effects, for cancer. The
Department of Chemistry has recently created an LCT Mass
Spectrometric facility under the FIST programme of the
Department of Science and Technology, Government of India.

The Department of Geology has been actively engaged in many

thrust areas of research in earth sciences. A Leica Workstation
DMRX with image analysis system with provision for polarising
transmitted and reflected light microscopy, differential
interference contrast, phase contrast microscopy, digital
photography and quantitative analysis have been installed recently
in the Department.

The Department of Botany has been contributing significantly

in several areas of plant sciences, particularly in the assessment
of genetic diversity at the molecular level and understanding
morpho-genetic phenomena in different groups of plants. Under
the FIST programme, the Department has acquired a Confocal
Laser Scanning Microscope. This facility gives a fillip to research
in structural biology.

The Department of Mathematics is known for its recent

contributions in Analysis, such as Spectral Synthesis in
hypergroups, quotient rings of algebras of functions and
operators, role of orthogonal polynomials in differential

21
 equations, Sobolev inequalities, matrix ordered spaces, bounded
mean oscillation spaces, Hardy inequalities, tensor products of
operator spaces, Riemann-Hilbert problem, and in other areas
such as group-explicit methods in parallel programming and
optimization techniques. The Department has set up recently a
laboratory with modern computation facility.

The VP Chest Institute is a constituent of the University

specializing in research and higher learning in pulmonary
medicine. The Institute went through a phase, during the last
five years, of
modernizing their
research facilities. A
state-of-the-art
Animal House was
commissioned. A
spiral CT Scan has
been installed and a
sophisticated 32
VP Chest Institute
Channel Sleep
Laboratory has been established, which enhance considerably
the Institute’s capability at diagnosis.

Social Sciences and Humanities:

The Departments of Social Sciences and Humanities in the
University of Delhi have always been leaders in research. The
Social Science Research Council of the USA has acknowledged
the enormous contribution of the University of Delhi to social
science research in this part of the world. Interdisciplinary
programmes in social sciences got a major boost during the recent

22
years, while many disciplines acquired new and prestigious
programmes.

The Department of Political Science which was already a

Department of Special Assistance was awarded the assistance for
strengthening of infrastructure in the Humanities and Social
Sciences by the UGC. The Department’s projects on Local
Governance in a Comparative Perspective and Distinctiveness
of Indian Democracy, among others, have made significant
progress.

The Department of Chinese and Japanese Studies added into its

fold Korean Studies and got its new name of East Asian Studies.
Globalization and Institutional Reforms in East Asia and
Literature in the Twentieth Century in East Asia are some of the
major projects that have been completed and publications are
forthcoming.

The Department of Sociology has completed a major international

collaborative project on Ethnography of the State and another
on Trends in the Methodology of Social Research.

There were contributions from the Department of History

towards documenting the anti-colonial struggle in India in the
form of two three-volume sets of documents relating to the
Freedom Struggle in a project supported by the Indian Council
for Historical Research. The Department has also been active in
the areas of new social history, interface of memory and history,
monetary history, history of art and architecture, landscape
archaeology and the emergent sub-field of ‘historical fieldwork’.

The Department of Psychology is known for their work in recent

23
 years in cultural psychology and psychohistory. An important
publication on Methodology and Fieldwork came out of the
Department of Anthropology in 2004. Department of Economics
is known for its contributions to economic theory and
development economics. Departments of Law, Management,
Social Work and Education of the University of Delhi are leaders
in their respective areas of professional expertise. The Department
of Education, including teachers of the Experimental Basic School
attached to it, made significant contributions to the exercise of
textbook revision initiated in recent years by the Government
of Delhi. The Department has also been active in providing
resource support to governmental and non-governmental
initiatives at universalizing elementary education. Departments
of languages have also made significant contributions in their
respective areas. The Department of Linguistics is known for
their work in the past few years in theoretical linguistics, socio-
linguistics and applied linguistics.

The University hosted the All India Public Hearing on the Rights
to Food, where people’s movements took part together with
many policy makers and economists including the Nobel Laureate
Professor Amartya Sen.

The Developing Countries Research Centre became a full-fledged

Centre of the University. The Centre undertook a number of
international collaborative projects including Rights,
Representation and the Poor; Conflicts and Institutional Change
in India, Brazil and South Africa; and Truth, Reconciliation and
Human Rights in India and South Africa. It also completed a
comparative study of Poverty Eradication and the role of local

24
institutions in three states of India. A major research programme
of the Centre was on Gender and Migration in Asia under which
an international seminar was held leading to the publication of
five volumes currently in press.

The Women Studies and Development Centre had a number of

research programmes including the decennial review of the
Platform of Action of the Beijing World Congress of Women. It
has been engaged in a project on Feminism in an Indian
Perspective, which has involved scholars and activists from all
over India in various fields.

25
 Library System

A comprehensive legislation on the governance of the Library

system was enacted in 2004 to make the system more effective
and efficient. Rs 8 million from the developmental grants to the
University under the Ninth Plan was reallocated to the Library
system, over and above the regular developmental grant
earmarked for it. Plans for the restoration of the Library building
has been approved by the University. The proposal is at present
being considered for approval by the Government of Delhi. The
Braille Library has been modernized and upgraded. The
University of Delhi has entered into an agreement with the UGC
and the Inflibnet to participate in the country-wide Infonet
programme. The University Computer Network has been
provided 2 Mbps of additional bandwidth, and more importantly,
subscription to a whole consortium, running into hundreds of
electronic journals in sciences, social sciences and humanities.

26
 Upgrading the University Science
Instrumentation Centre

M any instruments at the University Science Instrumentation

Centre had not been functional for a long time due to paucity of
grants for repairs and spares. For the first time, the University
provided additional grants, not only for making dysfunctional
instruments functional and for their upgradation, but also for
acquiring new instruments. Under the Tenth Plan grant, the
University Instrumentation Centre has acquired a Micro-Raman
Laser Spectrometer used for determination of phase chemistry
and other applications in physics, chemistry, biology,
microbiology and forensic science.

27
 Academic Infrastructure

M uch of the academic infrastructure available on the North

Campus had been constructed in the 1940s and 1950s. The number
of postgraduate departments, faculty, courses and number of students
have since increased manifold. However, the infrastructure has not
undergone any expansion worth the name in the last three or four
decades. The need for extra space has been experienced acutely in
the Faculty of Arts complex, where the departments of the Faculties
of Arts, Social Sciences and Mathematical Sciences were located.
With the passage of time this was aggravated by the expansion and
diversification of faculty. Several members of faculty did not have
any office space, and many others were forced to share office space.
Addressing this need, two new buildings with state-of-the-art facilities
have been constructed next to the Faculty of Arts. The first houses
the Faculty of Mathematical Sciences. Opposite this, is the other
new building which is the new home for the Faculty of Social Sciences.
As a result of this, much more space has been released within the
Old Faculty of Arts Complex for the members of the Faculty of
Arts.
28
The Life Science Departments of the South Campus have been
pioneers in the frontier of research, and have a longstanding need
for more space for their academic and research programmes. In
response to this, a new Academic Block with modern features is
being constructed in the South Campus, and is nearing completion.
This building will house the Life Sciences Departments.

There have been several interdisciplinary and applied research, training

and extension activities in the University, and some of them are
being pursued through specialized Centres set up for this purpose.
An Academic Research Centres Complex has come up opposite
Khalsa College to house these activities. This Complex has several
common facilities like an auditorium which can seat 250 persons, a
number of large multi-purpose rooms which can be used for lectures,
seminars, training laboratories, workshops and a cafetaria. In this
building, space has been allocated for the Developing Countries
Research Centre, the Women’s Studies Development Centre, the

29
 Centre for Science Education and Communication, the Intellectual
Property Rights Centre, the Institute of Humanities, the Centre
for Psycholanalytic Studies, the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies
of Mountain and Hill Development and the Professor DS Kothari
Centre for Science, Ethics and Education. One floor of this building
is allocated to the Department of Education to locate its diverse
activities and house its various facilities, including those under the
IASE-MACESE Scheme of the Ministry of Human Resource
Development, Government of India. This is in response to the
longstanding need for more space recognized right since 1979 when
the Central Institute of Education merged with the University of
Delhi as a full-fledged Department of Education.

A Biotech Centre is being established in the South Campus with

funding from the Government of Delhi. This Centre is meant to be
the nucleus of University-Industry interactive research in the areas
of enzymes of industrial utility, transgenic crops, diagnostics for
diseases and genetic disorders.

In addition, a comprehensive attempt was made to equip all faculty

offices with computers connected to the campus-wide network and
all classrooms with appropriate audiovisual equipment. Most newly
appointed members of faculty, especially in the sciences, were
provided with a seed-grant for setting up their laboratories.

30
 Connectivity

A campus-wide computer network was established in

December 2003 with an initial grant of Rs. 38.5 million from the
Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India, and
upgraded subsequently through an additional grant of Rs. 20
million from the Ministry of Human Resource Development,
Government of India. A gigabit fibre-optic backbone was laid in
the two campuses of the University. The work on this project
commenced in April 2002 and was completed in September 2003.
The speed of execution of this mega project has been widely
commended.

Services available to users include access to the internet through

6 Mbps (shared) bandwidth to the two campuses. Every faculty
member, official and many a research scholar has a computer
station connected to the LAN and an individual mailbox that
can be accessed remotely. The University on its own subscribes
31
 to a number of electronic journals and with the coming of the
UGC-Infonet-Inflibnet consortium, electronic subscription to a
collection of the world’s most prestigious journals has become
accessible to users throughout the University. Besides, the
Campus-wide Intranet, with transmission speeds of the order of
Gbps, provides genuine broadband connectivity within the
University. In time, it is expected that the application and use of
this network will grow.

The whole project involved about 44 km of fibre-optic cabling,

around 200 km of enhanced Cat5 UTP cabling and has provision
for 3200 nodes, stretched across nearly 80 buildings covering all
departments, centres and administrative units of the University,
13 campus colleges and 16 on-campus hostels. Since 2004, the
reach of the network has been further extended, the Main and
the South campuses have been connected directly by a dedicated
wireless link, and a trial project of bringing off-campus colleges
on the network through wireless has been initiated.

32
 Residences

T he University of Delhi is truly speaking a national university.

Situated in the national capital, it attracts an enormous number
of students from all over India. It also attracts a large number of
students from other countries. The University of Delhi has one
of the largest enrolment of foreign students among universities
in India and this part of the world. The number of students
from other parts of India and abroad are particularly high in the
postgraduate and research programmes. The demand for
residence was much more than what was available on campus.
The situation was particularly acute in the case of women. In the
past five years, several hostels have come up. The interesting
aspect of this development is that the University tapped several
sources other than the UGC for funding the construction of
these hostels. The International Students’ House for Women
with 100 seats was established in the Dhaka campus with the
University’s own funds. The North Eastern Students’ Hostel

33
 for Women in the Dhaka Campus and the North Eastern
Students’ Hostel for Men in the South Campus, each with 100
seats, were constructed with funding from the North Eastern
Hill Council. An SC-ST Women’s Hostel and a hostel for
students of the Delhi School of Economics with 100 seats have
also been set up in the Dhaka campus. On the South Campus,
another men’s hostel has been established with funding from the
UGC under the Ninth Plan. In the year 2000, the total capacity
of the University hostels was about 1000. With all these new
hostels, the total capacity of student-residences has increased by
about 50%; the total capacity now is about 1500. Of this increase,
about 300 seats have been for women.

The older hostels too have been provided with resources to

modernize their kitchens, renovate bathrooms and create
common facilities. This has been an important millennium
achievement, even if it is less visible. The physical environment
of these hostels has also been improved considerably.

34
 Common Facilities

Conference Centre:
A state-of-the-art Conference Centre has come up opposite the
Department of Botany. This complex has a large air-conditioned
conference hall, which can seat more than 200 people. The
complex also has nine large and medium-sized committee rooms,
board rooms, computer room, and space which can be used for
video-conferencing and as a media centre. It has also a large room
for coffee and tea breaks, a spacious and impressive lounge and a
pantry. The Conference Centre has a beautiful green ambience.
With the commissioning of this facility, the University
community can now organize academic conferences, national
and international, on campus without having to rent space in
hotels or other institutions in the city.

35
 Guest Houses:
An International Guest House has been established in the main
campus. It began functioning in October 2004. It has 27 rooms,
some of which are large
suites. The rooms are well
appointed to suit
international guests. The
Guest House has a fully
equipped modern kitchen,
a spacious dining room, a
fully equipped conference
room, and a large lounge. The earlier University Guest House
has also been refurbished. Its rooms, kitchen and dining space
have been modernized.

Auditorium:
The Shankarlal Concert Hall, which was constructed some three
decades ago, was in a state of disrepair. A major project of repair
and restructuring of the Concert Hall has just been completed. It
is now a state-of-the-art auditorium with all modern facilities.
The hall can seat 520 persons. It has backstage facilities and
excellent acoustics. There is a large and beautiful lounge attached
to the hall. The Concert Hall has a beautifully maintained green
space around it.

The two guest houses, the conference centre, the convention hall
which is a part of the restored Old Viceregal Lodge, and the
refurbished concert hall together make the University self-
sufficient for holding all kinds of events with congregations of
various sizes.

36
 Campus Environment

T he North Campus is not a compact campus. It is an open and

porous space. It has been a challenge to make it safe and secure
for the University community, particularly for women students.
We have been able to achieve this to a large extent. We have also
been able to address the problem of harassment of women
through effective preventive measures, strict punitive action
against perpetrators and sustained follow-up with victims which
includes even long term professional help. The University has
also come out with a comprehensive legislation against sexual
harassment. All these measures, over the past five years, have
made the campus a much safer place, particularly for women,
than it used to be.

We have also been able to create an attractive ambience on

campus. The Jawahar Vatika in the precincts of the restored Old
Viceregal Lodge has now become a favorite space for the
University community. On the request of the Vice Chancellor,
and through the special interest taken by the then Lieutenant
Governor, the DDA has
come out with a generous
gift to the University of
Delhi. They have
designed, implemented
and financed the
development of two
pedestrian precincts as a
turn-key project. The
larger of the two is the
37
 University Plaza in the Arts Faculty Complex. It is an aesthetically
designed space with green lawns, brick-laid paths and courtyards
surrounding the statue of Vivekananda. The DDA has also
commissioned the renowned sculptor Dhruv Mistry to create
two large metal sculptures specially for the University Plaza.
The other mall is near the Botanical Gardens, and is therefore
appropriately called Plaza Botanica. It is a rectangular space
merging with the Botanical Garden, and has large patches of
grass and shrubs punctuated with a number of beautiful trees.
These spaces attract young people to spend their leisure in pleasant
surroundings in an atmosphere, which is both secure and socially
vibrant.

38
For nature lovers, the 4 acre space behind the University Press is
being developed into a mini Biodiversity Park. The terrain of
the Park will be like a shallow bowl with a wooded perimeter
surrounding a meadow with a small body of water in the middle.
The green canopy of the Park will be fully visible in five years.
The Biodiversity Park, along with areas contiguous to it where
the Plaza Botanica, the garden of medicinal herbs and the
Arboretum are situated, will be home to many rare species of
flora.

A number of new gardens have been developed during the last

five years, e.g., the gardens at the women’s hostel complex at
Dhaka, the gardens at the new Mathematical Sciences complex
and the University Centre. Three gardens are at present being
developed at the Academic Research Centre, Conference Centre
and the Social Sciences Block. Several new species of plants,
particularly palms, have been planted.
39
 Social and Utility Spaces

T he University of Delhi has a large campus community. There

has always been a felt need here for certain utilities as well as
space for social interaction. Since 2000, the Campus has seen the
establishment of a number of such facilities.

The first development in this direction after the turn of the

Millennium is the return of the Coffee House as an annexe to
the Old Viceregal Lodge. The Coffee House had been an
intellectual hub of the University of Delhi, and its return signifies,
in more senses than one, the re-assertion of the intellectual
tradition of the University.

A Utilities Centre has been constructed near the main

administration building of the University. It houses two banks,
ATMs, railway reservation counters, a post office and a Delhi

40
Transport Corporation Ticketing Centre. It also has a Kendriya
Bhandar departmental store. This Utilities Centre meets several
needs that the campus community has felt for a long time.

A University Centre was established in 2004 in the Arts Faculty

Complex adjacent to the Central Reference Library, overlooking
the new University Plaza. Its establishment is in response to the
need the University community has always felt for a space where
they can congregate for events, cultural and intellectual. It has a
food court, where Spic Macay has started a holistic health café.
It has an amphitheatre, which can seat about 100, set in a beautiful
green environment. The amphitheatre provides a congenial space
for theatre workshops, book-reading sessions and small music
concerts. It has a few multi-purpose rooms, which are used for
lectures, seminars and film-shows. It has also a reading room. A
collective of independent publishers has opened a bookstore called
41
 the ‘U-Special’ in the University Centre. It also has a souvenir
shop, ‘People Tree’. The most important component of the
University Centre, however, is the Centre for Self Expression
and Creative Growth, founded in the belief that it is crucial for
us to engage with crises in individuals’ lives and in social processes.
Youth as a stage in the human life cycle is especially prone to
such upheavals. Young people walk into this Centre to engage
with cultural and therapeutic experiences that enable emotional
expressions of a wide range and develop experientially into a
process of creative growth.

During the last five years, the facilities at the WUS Health Centre
have been upgraded. An X-ray machine and an automatic analyzer
in the pathology laboratory have been installed. Part-time
specialists have been engaged as consultants. Arrangements have
been made for providing services in the indigenous systems of
medicine.

To promote sports activities, the University of Delhi has developed

a national level facility at the polo ground of the University.

42
 Restoration of Heritage Buildings

T he main Campus of the University of Delhi was established in

the 1930s and 1940s, on the area adjacent to the camp set up for the
entourage of the King Emperor during the Delhi Durbar. The area
was on the North Western slope of the Northern Ridge, and had
several buildings and structures built by the British colonizers, some
immediately before and several others after the siege of Delhi in
1857. The most magnificent among these buildings is the Old
Viceregal Lodge. It now houses the offices of the Vice Chancellor
and other senior officers of the University, and also the Council
Halls. The building had a somewhat unremarkable beginning. It
was a forest inspection bungalow in the late 1860s. It was made a
circuit house in the 1880s. At the turn of the century it became the
residence of the Viceroy on his journey between Calcutta and Simla.
When the colonial capital moved to Delhi in 1911, the building
became the residence of the Viceroy. The Viceroy lived in this
building right through the years of the great war and for almost a
decade thereafter, till his new residence designed by Lutyens on
Raisina hill, some miles to the south, was ready. The underground
cellar of the building was for some time used as a makeshift prison
for Bhagat Singh, the great revolutionary. The present office of the
Registrar of the University is the room in which Lord Mountbatten
proposed marriage to Edwina. The building was handed over to the
University in 1933. Over the decades, the building had suffered
major structural and other damages. Several alterations had been
made to the building, mostly to create more space to accommodate
the growing demands of a fast expanding institution. In the year
2000, the building was a pale shadow of its glorious past.

43
 The Urban Heritage Foundation, Delhi provided a generous grant-
in-aid of Rupees 35 million for the restoration of the building. The
architect was selected through a competition judged by a
distinguished jury. Restoration involved undoing the alterations
made on the building over the years and restoring the original layout.
During repairs, care was taken to retain the original components of
the building, be it woodwork or marble. The old ballroom, which
had for some time been used as the University Library, and which
became later a dump for old furniture has now been restored and

44
made into a state-of-the-art convention centre. The convention centre
is centrally air-conditioned and is equipped with sound-proof
partitions which allow for its use either as a large convocation hall
or as three separate conference rooms. An exhibition area and an
archive have also been developed. The greatest challenge in this
process was to restore the original grandeur of the building, while
ensuring that the interiors were appropriately functional for use as
modern offices. The Jawahar Vatika and the lawns surrounding the
building have also been redesigned and re-landscaped in a manner
that they blended harmoniously with the restored building and its
ambience.

The University persuaded the Government of Delhi to set aside

Rupees 250 million during the Tenth Plan period (2002-2007) for
the restoration of old and heritage buildings at the University of
Delhi and its colleges. The Chief Minister Ms Sheila Dikshit and the
then Lieutenant Governor Mr Vijai Kapoor took special interest in
getting this restoration project launched. There are a few buildings
on the University campus built in the 1940s, some of them designed
by one of Lutyen’s contemporaries, Walter George. These buildings
were in varying states of disrepair, and needed urgently to be repaired
and restored. The Faculty of Arts building, Gwyer Hall, the Central
Institute of Education, the Old Physics and Chemistry Block and
the Anthropology Block were identified for restoration. The Old
Physics and Chemistry Block is completely restored. Restoration
work in the Faculty of Arts, the Central Institute of Education and
Gwyer Hall is nearing completion. Restoration work in the
Anthropology Block is about to begin.

Among the colleges, Indraprastha, St. Stephen’s, Miranda House,

Lady Irwin, Hindu and Lady Shri Ram have been identified for
45
 restoration. While restoration work in Indraprastha, St. Stephen’s,
and Miranda House is complete, work is about to begin in Hindu,
Lady Irwin and Lady Shri Ram.

46
47
 Land and Development

L and is scarce in a growing megapolis like Delhi. It has been a

matter of great concern that the University has very little land
available for future expansion and development. The University
administration took up this matter actively with the Delhi
Development Authority through the then Vice Chairman, Mr
Anil Baijal. These efforts bore fruit. The DDA granted the
University 17 acres of land adjacent to a plot that the University
owns already near Bawana. This land is kept as a reserve for the
future development of the University, possibly for a West
Campus.

Illegal occupation of land is very much a part of the urban reality.

The University of Delhi had its own share of the problem. In
2000, there was almost 7 acres of University land opposite Khalsa
College, near Rieds Lines and in Dhaka under illegal occupation.
The University administration with the active cooperation of
the Government of Delhi, particularly with the help of the then
Lieutenant Governor as well as the Chief Minister had all these
lands vacated and made available for the development of the
University. The University, on its part, compensated the displaced
families for their resettlement. The University, through its
Department of Education, even arranged to provide resources
for a bus service to bring the children of the displaced families
from their resettlement colonies to their school till the completion
of the academic session.

48
 International Relations

T he University of Delhi has for long been aware of its role in

a larger international academic community, and in pursuance of
this, the University has been reaching out to fraternal institutions
in different parts of the world for collaborative programmes,
student exchange and so on. The thrust during the past five years
has been in strengthening our linkages within the Asian region.
The highlight of this has been our signing MOUs with four
leading Universities of South Korea, two national universities
and two highly respected private universities. There is an active
student exchange programme in the areas of Korean language,
culture, area studies, medicine, architecture, etc. We also continue
to sustain our links with institutions in Japan. There is a highly
successful collaboration on between the Institute of Informatics
in the University of Delhi South Campus and the TIT in Japan.

There has been an attempt to enlarge and deepen linkages with

the European Union. There are MOUs with some very reputed
Spanish, Portuguese, French and German institutions, under
which there are student exchanges particularly in language,
literature, culture and theatre.

The longstanding relationship that we have with the University

of Heidelberg and the University of California has been further
strengthened during the last five years. There is a highly successful
student exchange programme between the University of Delhi
and these Universities especially in areas in social sciences and
humanities. These linkages have now been extended also to
include some colleges of the University of Delhi.

49
 Efforts are on at present to build relationships with institutions
in Sweden, New Zealand, Brazil and Chile. Discussions and other
preparatory work are in progress. It is expected that we will soon
have MOUs with some leading institutions of higher learning in
these countries.

50
 Individual Recognitions

T he last few years saw several members of the University of

Delhi community being recognized with awards, fellowships and
decorations. Professor Indira Goswami of the Department of
Modern Indian Languages and Literary Studies, who is known
for her literary excellence in Assamese, received the 36th Jnanpeeth
Award for her contribution to Indian literature. Professor Deepak
Nayyar, Vice-Chancellor, was elected Chairman, Board of
Governors of the United Nations University – World Institute
for Development Economics Research, Helsinki. He was also
elected a member of the Board of Directors of the Social Science
Research Council of the United States. Professor Nayyar was
elected Honorary Fellow of Balliol College, University of
Oxford. He was also elected Vice-President of the International
Association of Universities based at UNESCO, Paris. Professor
Krishna Kumar of the Department of Education and Professor
Deepak Pental, Director, South Campus, were awarded
Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowships. Professor SK Tandon of the
Department of Geology was elected Fellow of the Third World
Academy of Science. Professor Debi Sarkar of the Department
of Biochemistry received the prestigious Bhatnagar Award. In
addition, several scientists in our science departments were
recognized for their work with fellowships of important national
academies.

51
 Special Events

Millennium Lecture Series:

The Millennium Series of Public Lectures was launched in 2002
with a grant of US$ 45,000 from the Ford Foundation in order
to enrich further the intellectual life of the University and the
larger community. The Lecture series enabled the University to
invite internationally distinguished scholars and to provide an
opportunity, not just to a specialist audience but to our
undergraduate and graduate students, as well as to the citizens of
the city of Delhi, to interact with some of the brightest minds of
the world. The vision that guided the University in seeking to
establish the Millennium Series is embodied in the words of
Rabindranath Tagore: “The most important mission of the
university is to bring together minds that are scattered and
disconnected so that much like the nucleus of the living cell, the
university becomes the centre of the intellectual life of the people.”
The distinguished scholars who have so far delivered public
lectures under the Millennium Series have been Professor Michael
Walzer, Professor Ronald Dworkin, Professor Joseph Stiglitz,
Nobel Laureate, Professor Perry Anderson, Professor Charles
Taylor and Professor Natalie Zemon Davis.

Convocations:
The annual convocations
provided an opportunity for the
University community to listen
to addresses by distinguished
persons. The convocation

52
addresses in the past five years have been delivered by Dr.
Varghese Kurien, Professor Romila Thapar, Dr. APJ Abdul
Kalam, Professor RA Mashelkar, Professor UR Ananthamurthy
and Professor CNR Rao. During the last five years, the University
made it a norm to hold the annual convocation on the last
Saturday of February every year. A special convocation was held
in January 2003 to honour H.E. Mr. Syed Mohammad Khatami,
President of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

DS Kothari Memorial Lecture Series:

Several distinguished scientists and
thinkers visited the campus to deliver the
annual DS Kothari Memorial Lectures.
In this series, the speakers were Dr Karan
Singh, Dr LM Singhvi, Professor Michael
Atiyah and Dr APJ Abdul Kalam.

Other Visitors:
Many distinguished scholars and academics visited the
departments of the University during the past five years, either
as participants in various programmes or as visiting professors.
They include Professor Noam Chomsky, Professor Jacques
Derrida, Professor Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate, Professor
Michael Apple, Mr Kumar Sahani and Professor Ghulam
Mohammed Sheikh, to name just a few.

Cultural Events:
Several cultural events took place in the University in the past
five years. One such was a series of music concerts that were
conducted in the Convention Hall of the Old Viceregal Lodge as
a part of the celebration of the restoration of this magnificent

53
 heritage building. The celebration began with the DS Kothari
Memorial Lecture by the President of India, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam
in January 2005. A shehnai recital by Ustad Bismillah Khan was
held in February 2005 under the auspices of Spic-Macay. In March
2005, a dual concert was held, a vocal recital by Ms Shubha
Mudgal followed by a Sitar recital by Pandit Debu Chaudhari.

54
 Faculty Appointments and Promotions

M any academic positions were vacant in the postgraduate

departments in 2000, as selections had not been held for faculty
positions in several departments for years. Selections for more
than 450 faculty positions were held in the past five years, and
more than 300 faculty appointments have been made. The
remaining positions have been re-advertised. This process ensured
the infusion of a large body of young talent in the teaching
faculty. This will go a long way in sustaining quality in the
academic and research programmes of the University for many
years to come. In addition, as many as 375 teachers in postgraduate
departments were considered for promotion under the CAS
scheme during the last five years.

55
 Facilitating the renewal processes in Colleges

T he University of Delhi lives in its colleges. During the last five

years, there has been an attempt to strengthen the umbilical cord
between the University and colleges, taking care, however, not to
stifle their capability to take academic initiatives. One such move was
the formal decision taken by the Academic Council and the Executive
Council to allow colleges to offer short-time courses, some of which
would lead to certification by the University.

There are 69 undergraduate colleges in the University, of which 11

are evening colleges. The undergraduate education that the University
provides is rated as the best in the country. Some of its colleges are
internationally known. The University, during the last five years, has
successfully persuaded the Government of Delhi to provide a special
grant to restore and repair the buildings of some of the older colleges.
56
Many colleges were without Principals for some time, and a few
among them for several years. In the last five years, as many as 20
Principals of Colleges have been appointed.

The governance of colleges is a complex process and involves

management of a large body of students, teachers and non-teaching
staff. It is recognized that those who have for many years been involved
only in academics, when appointed Principals, need skills in a wide
spectrum of areas – administrative, financial and human resource
management as well as in institutional development and perspective
planning. With this in view, the University partnered with the Indian
Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, to design a special professional
development workshop for Principals. The first workshop, for a
batch of 31 Principals was conducted in December 2003 – January
2004. This was the first time the University addressed the issue of the
professional development of those in management and governance of
institutions within the system. It was much appreciated by the College
Principals.

57
 New Initiatives

School of Design:
The Vice-Chancellor set up a Committee to examine the
feasibility of establishing a School of Design within the University
of Delhi with the dual purpose of mainstreaming the teaching of
Design as a discipline within a University framework and of
making the study of design more accessible and affordable to
students. The Committee came out strongly in favour of
establishing a three-year undergraduate programme in Design
leading on to postgraduate and research programmes in the twin
streams of Design and Design Studies. The Academic Council
and the Executive Council have approved the setting up of a
Faculty of Design and a School of Design offering BA, MA and
eventually a PhD programme in Design. The University has
earmarked a 5.29 acre plot of land within the Dhaka Campus,
which is an extension of the Main Campus, for creating the
infrastructure for the School of Design. The Planning
Commission, the Ministry of Human Resource Development
and the University Grants Commission have agreed in principle
to support this initiative with a one-time grant-in-aid to meet the
capital expenditure on building and equipment. The UGC is
considering the University’s proposal to support the maintenance
of a 20 strong faculty to begin with.

Campus of Open Learning:

Of the total of about 300,000 students admitted to the various
academic programmes of the University, as many as 150,000 access
these programmes through the distance and open learning mode.

58
 These are largely young people whose aspirations for higher
education have not been met through the conventional structures
of the University. Some of them may also well be those who
choose to pursue their studies part-time while exploring entry
into the world of work. These numbers are growing steadily.
Making the Campus of Open Learning operational was therefore
a priority, particularly with a view to achieving greater equity in
access to academic programmes of the University of Delhi. There
was a need to re-look comprehensively at the various structures
and provisions that had already been created in order to make
the system of open and distance learning adequately responsive
to the needs of the large and varied population of young people
who access higher education through this mode. The
Commonwealth of Learning, the internationally renowned
resource institution in open and distance learning under the
Commonwealth of Nations, extended assistance in terms of
professional resource and ideas for the re-conceptualization of
the Campus of Open Learning and its various structures and
functions. All the legislative work related to the creation of the
School of Open Learning (SOL) in place of the School of
Correspondence and Continuing Education was initiated and
brought to a conclusion. The legislative framework of the Open
Learning Development Centre (OLDC) has been completed.
When established, the OLDC is expected to undertake research,
development and training in open and distance learning. It is
visualized that the OLDC will service not only the SOL, but
also other constituents of the University in their effort to weave
in elements of open and distance learning into their academic
programmes. Besides these, a Faculty of Open Learning, with a

56 59
 Department of Distance and Continuing Education within it,
has also been fully legislated and are being activated.

New Departments and Faculties:

When knowledge grows and diversifies, and when new areas
emerge as full-fledged disciplines, it is imperative for a university
to establish new departments. The past five years saw the
establishment of a few new departments and faculties. They are
the Department of Homoeopathic Medicine, the Faculty of
Homoeopathic Medicine and the Department of Physical
Education. The University has decided to set up a Faculty of
Environmental Studies to promote teaching and research in
environment and ecology.

New Interdisciplinary Centres:

As a part of the University’s efforts at encouraging
interdepartmental collaborations and interdisciplinary initiatives,
three interdisciplinary centers have recently been established.
They are the Centre for Plant Genomics, the Centre for
Psychoanalytic Studies and the Institute of Humanities. These
three Centres are expected to provide platforms for researchers
and scholars from various allied disciplines to come together and
address problems of an interdisciplinary nature through collective
reflections and deliberations, documentation of experiences,
collaborative research, and training.

60 57
 Mobilizing Resources

A t the turn of the millennium, the University of Delhi was in a

difficult financial situation as resource constraints were becoming
dominant. It was essential to address the problem in terms of
both resource utilization and resource mobilization. Better financial
management was obviously necessary and desirable but not
sufficient. If the University had to maintain its position of
leadership in higher education in India, it had to mobilize more
finances, not only for the maintenance of its physical assets but
also for its development projects. The sheer size of the University,
as also the diversity of its programmes, made it a real challenge to
mobilize financial resources that would address the development
needs of the University in an optimum manner.

The University of Delhi is almost entirely dependent on the UGC

for its maintenance grants. In 1999-2000, which was representative
of the 1990s, the situation was as follows. The revised estimates of
the budget were Rs 1,223 million, while the actual maintenance
grant released by the UGC, including internal receipts, in terms
of actuals, was Rs 1,042 million. Almost 75 per cent of the
maintenance expenditure was on salaries and retirement benefits.
Of the remainder, about three-fifths were absorbed by pre-emptive
claims such as rents, electricity, telephones, medical expenses and
examinations. Therefore, just about 10% of the maintenance grant
was available for other uses and needs. It was obviously not enough
even for the maintenance of physical assets. Libraries and
laboratories languished. This was no different from the situation
in Universities elsewhere in India.

61
 The University of Delhi sought to address this problem at two
levels. First, it persuaded the UGC to allocate more resources.
Second, it sought to mobilize resources from outside the UGC.

The revised estimates, for the University of Delhi budget, increased

from Rs 1,224 million in 2000-01 to Rs 1,828 million in 2004-05.
The maintenance grant released by the UGC, including internal
receipts, in terms of actuals, rose from Rs 1,084 million in 2000-01
to Rs 1,601 million in 2004-05. Hence, there was an increase of
more than 50 per cent in a span of five years. Even more important,
perhaps, the share of expenditure, other than on salaries and
retirement benefits of the total expenditure, registered a very
significant increase from 29% in 2000-01 to 41% in 2004-05.

The much improved financial support from the UGC was most
valuable in our endeavour. The UGC recognized that it was
important to support institutions that make systematic efforts to
utilize and mobilize resources instead of simply bridging the gap
between income and expenditure. Some of this support came in
the form of special grants-in-aid for specified purposes. In the
three year period, from 2002-03 to 2004-05, the UGC provided
almost Rs 150 million in the form of such special one-time grants-
in-aid, including Rs 65 million for the repair and renovation of
buildings, Rs 22 million for the upgradation of an electric sub-
station, Rs 16 million for improving facilities in University hostels,
Rs 15 million for renovation of the University auditorium, and
Rs 11 million for improving the drainage-sewerage system.

The development support provided by the UGC, for capital

expenditure, remained at modest levels. Yet, support from the
UGC was an important contribution. Ninth Plan grants from

62
the UGC enabled us to construct a new building for the Faculty
of Mathematical Sciences, the International Guest House and
the University Centre. During the Tenth Plan, the UGC
provided much less for buildings than had been recommended
by the Visiting Committee. It sanctioned a sum of Rs 28.4
million for a multi-disciplinary academic complex, Rs 15 million
for an academic research complex and Rs 15 million for a
conference centre in the main campus. In addition, it sanctioned
Rs 17.9 million for an academic complex in the South Campus.
These grants were important but not sufficient, given the cost
of construction and the need for space. It was, therefore,
important to help ourselves. These four buildings have been
completed and the balance has been met from University
resources.

The UGC grants-in-aid for plan expenditure are less than 5%

of the grants-in-aid for non-plan maintenance expenditure. Such
a small proportion of investment in total expenditure can only
mortgage the future. Hence, it was imperative to mobilize
additional resources, from elsewhere, to meet developmental
needs. And this is what we did.

The restoration of the Viceregal Lodge was supported by a

grant-in-aid of Rs 35.3 million from the Delhi Urban Heritage
Foundation. It would not have been possible without the strong
support we received from the then Lieutenant Governor of
Delhi.

The connectivity project was supported by a generous grant-

in-aid of Rs 38.5 million from the Ministry of Information
Technology, Government of India. This network was

63
 subsequently upgraded through a further grant of Rs 20 million
from the Ministry of Human Resource Development,
Government of India.

In response to a request from the Vice Chancellor, the Government

of Delhi set aside a sum of Rs 250 million, in its Tenth Five Year
Plan, for the restoration of old and heritage buildings at the
University of Delhi and its colleges. This would not have been
possible without the extraordinary support from the Chief
Minister and the then Lieutenant Governor who recognized that
heritage buildings at the University of Delhi were an integral part
of the heritage of Delhi. These grants-in-aid, which have already
been disbursed for the first three years of the Tenth Plan, have
supported the restoration of several buildings in the University
campus as also in its colleges.

The Government of Delhi, at the initiative of the Chief Minister,

provided a grant-in-aid of Rs 54 million for the construction of a
Biotechnology Centre in the South Campus, which is nearing
completion.

The two pedestrian precincts in the University campus, the

University Plaza and Plaza Botanica have been developed for us
on a turnkey basis, financed entirely by the Delhi Development
Authority. The estimated cost of these plazas is about Rs 20 million.
These plazas would not have been possible without the generous
support from the then Lieutenant Governor of Delhi.

The construction of the new hostels has been financed by the

following grants-in-aid from the Government of India: Ministry
of Social Justice and Empowerment (Rs 21 million), North Eastern
Council, Ministry of Home Affairs (Rs 35 million and Rs 28
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million) and Ministry of Human Resource Development (Rs 16
million). In addition, the University of Delhi financed a hostel (Rs
26 million) from its foreign students registration fund. The UGC
provided a grant of Rs 10 million in the Ninth Plan for a student
hostel in the South Campus.

The University of Delhi South Campus alone has generated research

funding from various sources to the tune of about Rs 500 million.
This is apart from the assistance from the Department of Science
and Technology under FIST for equipment and facilities. The
Centre for Environmental Management of Degraded Ecosystem
alone has received a grant of Rs 130 million, and has secured
approval of another Rs 100 million during the past five years from
various sources, particularly from the Delhi Development
Authority and the Department of Biotechnology of the
Government of India. A total grant of Rs 57.5 million has been
generated by 22 departments of under the Special Assistance
Programme of the UGC. The science departments received Rs
73.2 million under FIST programme from the Department of
Science and Technology of the Government of India. The Centre
for Interdisciplinary Studies of Mountain and Hill Environment
generated a grant of Rs 48 million. The National Consumers
Helpline set up at the Department of Commerce has attracted a
grant-in-aid of more than Rs 32 million from the Ministry of
Consumer Affairs. There are many other departments that have
received research funding from various sources. Put together, they
amount to several tens of millions of Rupees. Individual researchers
also have been able to attract research funding during this period,
which put together, amount to a sizeable sum.

65
 Conclusion

W e have been able to convert the challenges that the turn of the
Millennium brought with it into opportunities for laying the
foundation for a new beginning in the life of the University.
This process has now gathered momentum. There is infrastructure
enough to take the University through the next several decades.
Restructured programmes and new courses are fast taking roots.
New academic practices are becoming traditions; commitment
to them from all concerned is deepening. The contours of a
conducive academic, social and physical environment on the
campus are already becoming visible. Much of this holds
enormous possibilities, which will unfold only in the years to
come.

Institutional renewal, however, can never be a finished enterprise.

It is a continuous process. There are still aspects of the University’s
functioning that need to catch up with the pace of change, in
what we witnessed in the past five years as a wave of structural
transformation. The newly established connectivity on campus,
for instance, is yet to find its optimum application, in the
modernization of library services, in simplifying and adding
efficiency to administrative procedures, moving towards a paper-
free office and in the examination system. As for the examination
system, with the introduction of internal assessment, the first
phase of examination reforms is already complete. The next phase
which should focus on the organization and conduct of university
examinations is yet to take off. Although the University has many
more important strides to make in the years ahead, the past five
years have at least consolidated a tradition for effecting
66
institutional change through a collegial and participative process.
The university has, therefore, the readiness and the capacity to
move on to the next phase of institutional renewal.

There are two essential ingredients in every success story of

institutional transformation. One is the coherence of vision and
a sense of purpose. This, along with sustaining the morale of
change agents right through the process of institutional
transformation, is what a good leadership essentially provides to
an institution on the move. The second ingredient is teamwork.
In a large institution like the University of Delhi, the success of
a transformative process, such as the one we witnessed over the
last five years, critically hinges on the cohesiveness of the team
that steers this process. Moreover, carrying through such a
process, so extensive and vastly diverse, in a relatively short span
of five years, would have been unthinkable, had it not been for
the readiness on the part of the various constituents of the
University community to participate in and play leadership roles
for their respective domains of institutional change. Undoubtedly,
it helped that there was preparedness for such a change among
nearly all concerned. Surely, when the time for change comes,
change is irresistible.

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