Internet bill at UVCE not sanctioned

BANGALORE: It may sound strange but true. The Internet lease connection of 4 mbps at UVCEs Cyber Centre - Minchu provided by RailTel has not been approved by the purchase committee of Bangalore University for the last five months. The amount due to be paid by BU is Rs 4 lakh. As per the contract, payment for the Internet connection is annual and has to be made before services are provided. “As per our contract with RailTel, payment has to be made in the month of May or June. It has been five months and the purchase committee has not sanctioned the amount yet,” a UVCE staff member said. The staff member added that the Internet connection is active only because of the cordial relations the UVCE has maintained with RailTel. “The committee is sitting on several letters written by principal Dr K R Venugopal. We do not know when RailTel will pull out,” said the staff member. Express has a copy of the letter written to the Registrar by UVCE Principal Dr K R Venugopal, in which he states that not a single department in UVCE, including the Computer Science lab, has an active internet connection. “While all departments have connection points, none are active. We do not want to take Minchu’s connection as it would slow down the RailTel Internet speed in the entire building,” said a member from the Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) department. With 60 computers in Minchu, students at UVCE are suffering without Internet access in their respective departments. “I am forced to go to Minchu as there is no Internet in the CSE lab. Most of the times, there is no space in Minchu to accommodate more than 60 students,” said a third year CSE student. Several staff members who are pursuing their PhD course are forced to use data cards for their work. “Now that the issue has been raised, I will ask the registrar to bring it to my notice. Any pending payment will be made immediately,” VC Dr N Prabhu Dev said.