Now National Instruments belongs to JU

Mou Chakraborty
Kolkata, February 22, 2007

After the central cabinet gave approval on Friday to hand over National Instruments Limited (NIL) to Jadavpur University (JU), the university is now getting ready to turn the property into its third campus.
Located just opposite JU’s main campus, National Instruments, once the country’s leading institution for making implements for the army, will come under the university’s control in the next six months. This is the first university takeover of a unit “not run properly” for quite some time. This sick optical instrument-manufacturing unit was under threat, as promoters were eyeing the sprawling grounds to set up commercial and residential estates. The varsity, on the other hand, was also looking at this property to maintain the area’s academic environment.
The Centre has waived the equity capital of Rs 8.31 crore, loan of Rs 90.55 crore and interest of Rs 138.08 crore of NIL. It has also written off dues to the ministries of defence and home affairs — Rs 2.24 crore and Rs 0.87 crore respectively. The state government too has waived its dues of Rs 10 crore. JU will just have to pay a Rs 8-crore loan of NIL to State Bank of India. In addition, the Centre has also agreed to provide budgetary support in the form of grant in aid — Rs 1.58 crore — for paying arrears of salary and statutory due to NIL employees.
It will, however, take some time for the university to get the property. “The matter will now be referred to an appellate authority of the Centre and through various government bodies, the proposal will be sent to the board of directors of NIL, who will give their final nod. This process will require almost four to six months,” said Manoj Mitra, dean, faculty of engineering and technology, JU.
The university will now chalk out plans about how they would be using the property. The varsity plans to set up laboratories to carry out advanced research on industrial development in the huge space available on the NIL premises. “We will have programmes here through which we can earn revenue. There can be pilot plant projects done on behalf of some industry, collaborative programme with the defence, high-end training programmes with the industry, which would be remunerative. But we will also have to ensure that we have the capacity to implement all the programmes we undertake. For that, we will need some time to frame concrete plans,” said Mitra.
The university will also have to repair and renovate the property, spread over 450 cottahs, and have to transfer the 60 NIL employees to its payroll.
mou.hindustantimes@yahoo.com