An administrator at a leading Indian university has urged alumni to help tackle its ¡°considerable financial restraints¡± ¨C a plea that lays bare Indian institutions¡¯ need to muster up more cash amid declining government funding, academics said.

In late October, Jadavpur University vice-chancellor Suranjan Das wrote to former students, saying that ¡°government funding, both state and central, is becoming extremely inadequate¡±, local media?.

The university is among India¡¯s top-performing state institutions in?Times Higher Education¡¯s?Asia rankings. Still, its success has not assured it adequate resources.

¡°In recent years, we are facing considerable financial restraints to maintain our academic excellence, especially in science and technology,¡± wrote Professor Das, noting the institution¡¯s need for ¡°constant¡± infrastructure upgrades and to keep its student-teacher ratio competitive.

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The plea is indicative of the growing financial crunch faced by many Indian institutions even as top universities ¨C particularly the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), which benefit from a cadre of high-earning alumni working abroad ¨C have proven themselves deft fundraisers.

This May, Indian Institute of Technology Madras ?that it had raised a record sum of 131 crore rupees (?14 million) from alumni and other donors in the 2021-22 financial year.

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Comparatively speaking, even ¡°prominent¡± state universities such as Jadavpur University are ¡°disadvantaged¡± in terms of resources, said Eldho Mathews, a deputy adviser to the Unit for International Cooperation at the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, in New Delhi.

Rafiq Dossani, a senior economist at the?US-based thinktank Rand?Corporation and director of its?Center for Asia Pacific Policy, said that most state-owned universities in India were ¡°poorly funded¡± when it comes to capital investment into buildings and equipment.

¡°Some government institutions have been able to raise substantial sums from alumni, particularly the [IITs]¡­however, the smaller government-owned institutions are struggling to raise external funding,¡± he said.

Shahid Jameel,?a fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and previously chief executive of the DBT-Wellcome Trust India Alliance, a charity funding health research, echoed the sentiment.

Government funding was insufficient for ¡°most¡± Indian universities, with institutions typically using more than 85 per cent of these funds to pay salaries and pensions, he said.

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¡°With time, it leaves little for development work,¡± noted Professor Jameel.

While Jadavpur University is a state university and is funded by the state of West Bengal rather than by India¡¯s central government, both types of institution face increased salary and pension costs, rising inflation and static government funding, he said.

He cautioned against the negative effects of India¡¯s declining spending, which he said threatens to limit the country¡¯s innovation potential. But he also said that the government could be more of an ¡°enabler¡± to direct philanthropists to donate to the sector.

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India¡¯s Corporate Social Responsibility act requires all companies with a net annual income of at least 10 billion rupees (?105 million) to donate 2 per cent of their earnings for social good ¨C but higher education attracts ¡°very little¡± of this money, he said.

¡°The government can enable that, but the universities must also reform themselves through more transparency and better processes to attract CSR or philanthropy funds,¡± he said.

Other academics have suggested that, while some universities will inevitably struggle to get funding, the government¡¯s approach today is preferable to its previous policies.

In the past, India fully funded its IITs ¨C something Dr Dossani said did not create incentives for cost efficiency.

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¡°I think it is a good sign of mature government thinking if the government forces publicly owned universities to raise external funding from private sources,¡± he said.

pola.lem@timeshighereducation.com