Delhi University gets Rs 272 crore from Centre to set up residential hostel for women

NEW DELHI: The ministry of women and child development, Government of India, has allocated Rs 272 crore for residential accommodation for girls and working women enrolled at University of Delhi. The budget has been sanctioned under the Nirbhaya Fund.

“Aligned with PM Narendra Modi’s vision of Viksit Bharat, this initiative empowers working women and girls pursuing higher education. This project will provide 1,000 beds with enhanced security, CCTV surveillance and gender-sensitive amenities,” the Union minister Smriti Irani said.

Lauding the effort, Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that the initiative will encourage more female participation in higher education and national development. “State-of-the-art accommodation with gender-sensitive amenities and enhanced security features will provide an environment where #NariShakti can thrive and excel,” he said.

Delhi University has allocated a fund of Rs 67.71 crore for setting up a WiFi network across about 90 DU colleges and in an upcoming girls’ hostel in northwest Delhi's Mukherjee Nagar.

The execution of the work will be funded from the loan corpus of Rs 938.33 crore taken by the university from the Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA) in October last year. “A loan share of Rs 261.33 crore from this corpus has been sanctioned by the HEFA for setting up the WiFi network as well as to start the work for the construction of a building for the Faculty of Technology,” the PTI reported.

The ministry of minority affairs has also announced a few more initiatives, including establishing State-of-the-Art Gurmukhi Script learning centers in DU’s Khalsa colleges.and Centre for Advanced studies in Buddhist Studies.

The executive council of the university recently passed the DU budget of Rs 1,717.45 crore and announced to provide 75% fee concession for PhD students belonging to PwD category.