MU approves Rs. 724-crore budget for 2021-22 for digitisation purpose

Taking forward the digital move to the upcoming academic year, the University of Mumbai (MU) has put aside money for digitisation of the varsity in its annual budget. The university’s budget of ₹724 crore was tabled by the varsity for its senate on Saturday. This is the first time that the annual senate meeting was conducted virtually and was approved late on Saturday.The senate, comprising elected and nominated members including principals, teachers and management members, works as a watchdog for the university. The body has the power to approve the varsity’s annual budget.The deficit for the 2021-22 academic year stands at ₹78.53 crore, compared to ₹66.8 crore from the previous academic year. For 2020-21, the MU senate had approved a budget of ₹809.24 crore whereas for the 2021-22 academic year, the tabled budget was of ₹724 crore.“The Covid-19 pandemic and eventual lockdown have severely affected the income and expenditure of the university. Our predictions for the 2021-22 budget as well as the deficit did not match the final outcome, so there has been a reduction in the annual budget in comparison to our original prediction,” said an MU official as he read highlight of the budget at the annual senate meeting late on Saturday night.Highlights of the budget include the allocation of ₹1 crore for the Digital University project. MU also plans to spend ₹22.5 crore towards making its campus disabled-friendly. This is in line with the state government’s disability policy for higher education, which requires universities to reserve 3% of their budget towards making campuses disabled-friendly. This includes easy accessibility to infrastructure, peer support systems, disabled-friendly furniture and teaching aids.The budget has further allocated ₹2 crore for the Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar International Research Centre and ₹9 crore to set up the Balasaheb Thackeray Arts and Cultural Centre. Another ₹2 crore has been allocated to the digital library.