The Jawaharlal Nehru University administration issued a statement rubbishing the varsity’s students’ union allegations about reduction in the library funds.

Last week, the students’ union had accused the varsity administration of cutting down library funds from Rs 8 crore to Rs 1.7 crore. “Reports in the media that the annual budget for the Dr BR Ambedkar (Central) Library of JNU has been reduced from Rs 8 crore to Rs 1.70 crore are completely baseless,” the varsity said in a statement.

“The university has been allocating to the library every year an amount of Rs 1.70 crore for the books and journals from its grant received annually from the UGC. However, in the year 2012, the UGC gave one time bulk grant to JNU
under the 12th Plan for five years from which an extra amount was allocated for the next five years. Now that the 12th plan has ended the library is running with its regular annual grant,” the varsity said.

However, the JNU has already made a request to the UGC to release additional funds to meet the increasing requirements of the library.

The JNU Students’ Union (JNUSU) accused the financial officer of the varsity for hiding that the UGC had released Rs 20 crore. “Both UGC and JNU knew Planning commission had paved way for Niti Aayog. If the planned grant was ending why wasn’t sufficient planning done on part of both UGC and administration regarding funds? JNU VC Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar is member of UGC, so if UGC has cut down the funding why didn’t he dissent
then?” the JNUSU said in a statement.