The Raj Niwas on Wednesday clarified that Lieutenant Governor (LG) VK Saxena will inaugurate the east campus of Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU) on Thursday. This came after Education Minister Atishi Marlena on Tuesday said Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will inaugurate the campus. As per the invitation, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will be the Guest of Honour.
Sources in Raj Niwas said that Kejriwal himself was aware of the fact that Saxena was scheduled to inaugurate the campus. In fact, they were also aware that they were supposed to be present on the function as Guest of Honour and Distinguished Guest, as desired by the LG and had also consented to it. In fact, the Chief Minister had asked for the date to be shifted from May 23 to accommodate his schedule and accordingly, the date was re-scheduled to June 8. Sources said that Atishi made an announcement despite the fact that she was fully aware that that the same is to be done by the LG. The fact that the Lt. Governor(LG) will be inaugurating the campus was put on file way back in March when the University wrote to the LG Secretariat requesting for his consent to inaugurate the campus, and the Chief Minister was also fully aware of this. Moreover, even on the day when Atishi made this claim in a press conference on Tuesday, earlier during the day, the Vice Chancellor of GGSIPU had announced on stage at the convocation of GGSIPU, where Atishi was present as a Guest of Honour, that the East Campus of the University was scheduled to be inaugurated by the Lt. Governor on June 8. The Registrar and Vice Chancellor of the GGSIPU wrote to the LG Secretariat on file on March 17 requesting Saxena to inaugurate the East Campus in the third week of April.
The LG Secretariat wrote back to the VC conveying LG’s consent on April 27 and scheduled the inauguration on May 23.
In the same note, it was conveyed that the LG had desired that Chief Minister and Minister (Education) may also be invited for the inauguration. Subsequently, GGSIPU wrote back to LG Secretariat conveying that the above had been conveyed to the Chief Minister and Minister (Education) and that the Chief Minister had asked for the program to be re-scheduled because of pre-scheduled engagements.
The LG Secretariat accordingly, conceding to CM’s request, conveyed LG’s consent to inaugurate the East Campus of GGSIPU on June 8. The East Campus of GGSIPU was conceptualized way back in 2013 by late Dr Ashok Kumar Walia, when he was Urban Development Minister of Delhi Government.
The foundation stone of the campus was laid by the then Union Human Resources Development Minister Smriti Irani on 14.12.2014 and even after the AAP Government came to power in February, 2015, no concrete movement happened.
It took the GGSIPU itself to fund the building of the Campus at a cost of `387 Crore of which the government share was only `41 Cr. Even these `41 Cr. were paid in three instalments, the last of which was released just two days back i.e. on 05.06.2023.
The East Delhi Campus will also house the School of Planning and Architecture, which will be shifted to it from July.
The East Delhi campus will already be housing two schools—School of Automation and Robotics and School of Design and Innovation — on the day the new campus is opened. “From July onwards, the University School of Planning and Architecture will also be shifted to this campus. There is a synergy between the courses run by the three schools. These schools will be sharing faculty members, labs and there are also possibilities that we can run some programmes jointly,” said GGSIPU Professor PC Sharma.
The three schools will be located on the sprawling 19-acre campus of the university that has been built at a cost of `388 crore. The building will meet its electricity demand on its own through net-zero consumption.
What is interesting is that the university utilises the technology of geothermal cooling for its residential blocks and hostel blocks, Professor Sharma said.
