Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Nov 24: Notwithstanding Government’s repeated thrust on use of Information Technology in all the sectors, thousands of students in nearly 100 educational institutions across the State are being deprived of benefits of EDUSAT—a satellite devoted exclusively to long distance learning. The equipments worth crores of rupees installed by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) have been lying un-used for the past more than one and half year as the Government is not ready to cough up merely Rs 70 lakh for Annual Maintenance Contract (AMC).
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that Indian Space Research Organization, while making EDUSAT facility available in Jammu and Kashmir some years back, had made it amply clear that after three years, the maintenance of infrastructure installed by spending crores of rupees will have to be taken over by the State Government.
When ISRO’s contract with M/s Huges for maintenance of infrastructure expired in March 2011, the State Government instead of fulfilling its responsibility expressed inability to take over the infrastructure and subsequently ISRO extended its contract with M/s Huges by one year in order to provide sufficient time to the Government to gear up for taking over the maintenance.
Though in April 2012 the EDUSAT facility came to the grinding halt following expiry of maintenance contract yet Government didn’t come forward to ensure annual maintenance of the equipments in two hubs-one each in Government College for Women, Gandhi Nagar, Jammu and Government College for Women, M A Road, Srinagar besides Satellite Interactive Terminals in 99 institutions of higher education-44 in Jammu region and 55 in Kashmir valley, sources said.
“Despite lapse of nearly two years, the Government has not taken any decision vis-à-vis ensuring annual maintenance of the infrastructure worth crores of rupees”, they said, adding “due to reluctance of the Government to bear the expense of merely Rs 70 lakh per annum on the maintenance of equipments, infrastructure worth several crores of rupees is gathering dust”.
In response to a question, sources said, “since highly skilled manpower and spares of the equipments are not locally available the EDUSAT cannot be run without Annual Maintenance Contract with any expert company from outside the State”.
“It is matter of serious concern that Government is not ready to cough up Rs 70 lakh for the activity which otherwise is of immense benefit for thousands of students in nearly 100 institutions imparting higher education”, sources regretted. “The prevailing situation is notwithstanding the fact that in a power point presentation before the Planning Commission of India during the 2013-14 Annual Plan finalization, the State Government had boasted of increasing the outreach of higher education by establishing two EDUSAT hubs and providing connectivity to around 100 institutions”, they said.
Responding to another query, sources said, “under the EDUSAT facility lectures are delivered to the students of connected institutions from the main hubs keeping in view their specific requirements”, adding “such lectures are even recorded so that on the request of the students the same can be repeated. Moreover, a panel of subject lecturers and professors is framed at colleges having main hubs so that requirements of the connected colleges could be easily and timely met with”.
When contacted, Director Colleges, Higher Education Department, Prof Tariq Ahmad Kawoosa confirmed that EDUSAT facility was not available to the students of connected institutions for want of maintenance issue. “Recently a meeting to sort out the issue was held and hopefully within next some months we will be able to restart the facility”, he added.
Prof Kawoosa, however, admitted that EDUSAT was providing immense benefit to the students particularly of the institutions in the remote areas.
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