NIT Warangal director, registrar quit after students’ protest

HYDERABAD - The director and the registrar of the National Institute of Technology (NIT) in Andhra Pradesh’s Warangal town have announced their decision to quit following massive protests by students who alleged embezzlement of funds.

Director Y.V. Rao and in-charge registrar C.S.P. Rao announced their resignations late Wednesday after three hours of protests by students.

Tension prevailed on the NIT campus as over 5,000 students laid siege to the director’s office demanding his resignation over the alleged misappropriation of Rs.40 crore allotted by the union human resource development (HRD) ministry for providing basic amenities.

C.S.P. Rao also announced his decision to tender his resignation in the wake of students’ protest.

The students complained about the steep and unilateral increase in fees, absence of toilets for girl students on the campus, poor quality of food being served at the hostels and severe shortage of drinking water.

The students made the director stand for three hours late Wednesday and shot him 40 questions in the presence of media persons.

Rao had no answers but sought a week’s time to set things right. However, students

were unrelenting on their demand that he quit immediately.

Bowing to the pressure, he wrote a resignation letter addressed to NIT Chairman Deekshitulu, handed them over to students and walked out of the campus.

It was not immediately clear if their resignations under pressure would be valid and accepted by higher authorities.

Various students’ groups had been protesting against both the director and the registrar for last four days. The allegations that the director was biased against Telangana students only added fuel to the fire as pro-Telangana students’ outfits also joined the protests.

NIT Warangal, formerly known as Regional Engineering College (REC), ranked among the top 10 technology institutes in the country. It celebrated its golden jubilee in 2008.

It was on Oct 10, 1959 that India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had laid the foundation stone for REC, Warangal, one of the RECs set up across the country for technical advancement and promotion of national integration.

It was jointly funded and managed by central and state governments till 2003 when the HRD ministry took a decision to take over all the RECs, rename them as National Institute of Technology and convert them to deemed universities.