JNU's Mgmt & Engineering Students Get Infra Add-On

Time of India

12 hours ago

New Delhi: For the first time since their inception in 2018, students of
Jawaharlal Nehru University
's engineering and management schools will have buildings to call their own. As part of a Rs 483.66-crore infrastructure overhaul approved under the Higher Education Funding Agency (HEFA) scheme, JNU is set to construct a new academic block and separate hostels for both schools.
The Rs 142-crore academic centre will feature high-tech lecture halls, simulation spaces, faculty rooms, interdisciplinary collaboration zones, and laboratories tailored to the specific needs of technology and business education. The hostels — with a combined capacity of 2,600 students — aim to end years of dependence on shared accommodation by students of the School of Engineering and the Atal Bihari Vajpayee School of Management and Entrepreneurship.
This is the first time JNU is building dedicated hostels for any specific academic programme — a rare step in a university where most hostels are shared across disciplines. Even the Barak hostel, originally proposed as an exclusive space for students from the Northeast, was eventually opened to all students.
The engineering and management programmes are among the few courses at JNU with comparatively higher tuition fees in a contrast to the low-cost, subsidised education offered in most other disciplines.
A section of students and faculty have often pointed to the mismatch between the fee structure and the lack of adequate infrastructure for these schools.
According to data available on JNU's website, general-category students are charged Rs 12 lakh for the entire MBA full-time programme, OBC students (Non-Creamy Layer) are charged Rs 8 lakh, and SC/ST/PWD students are charged Rs 6 lakh for the course.
The new facilities aim to address that gap.
The proposed academic block will span 29,000 sqm and will cater to the needs of both schools.
The hostels are also being designed with upgraded amenities. The 34,500-sqm hostel for the School of Engineering will accommodate 1,950 students and include furnished rooms, study lounges, dining halls and green open spaces that will cost Rs 126.69 crore to make. The hostel for the management school — built over 11,500 sqm at a cost of Rs 42.23 crore — will house 650 students and offer modular rooms and common workspaces suited to postgraduate learners.
"These projects mark a turning point in JNU's journey," vice-chancellor Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit said. "Our commitment to holistic development is laying the foundation for a globally competitive and research-intensive university."
The construction of these buildings is part of a larger infrastructure development plan under HEFA, through which JNU received approval for nine major projects. While the engineering and management school buildings form a significant part of this, the university is also set to build a trans-disciplinary academic and research block (Rs 41.24 crore), an advanced animal research facility (Rs 22.92 crore), an upgraded advanced instrumentation research facility (Rs 27.05 crore), a start-up incubation centre (Rs 17.69 crore), and a new 2,000-seat lecture hall complex (Rs 52.85 crore) to ease the pressure on existing infrastructure.
Vice-chancellor Pandit thanked the ministry of education and other university stakeholders for their support, adding that these projects align with the vision of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and will enable JNU to become a "future-ready campus" that empowers students and faculty alike.