The Vice-Chancellor of GNDU completes two years in office

The Vice-Chancellor of GNDU completes two years in office

KS Diwan/ royalpatiala.in/ Amritsar

Guru Nanak Dev University has excelled and leap-frogged in the areas of academics, research, sports and cultural activities under the gifted, proficient, adroit and dexterous leadership of  Vice-Chancellor Dr. Jaspal Singh Sandhu in the last two years. The University, which had already been accredited with the highest grade of A++ by NAAC, was also granted “Category One” status, and it became the only University to earn this elite status in the region of Punjab and Chandigarh. In the last two years, it improved its NIRF ranking by securing 55^th position amongst all Universities in 2019 from 80^th in 2017. It is also placed among the top 8.7% Universities of the world by Centre for World University Ranking (CWUR), a leading agency in the world of higher education. By the standards of CWUR Guru Nanak Dev University has been placed at 7^th position among the public state universities of India and 48^th position among all the prestigious institutions of India including the likes of IISc, IITs and central universities.

Being among the top ten high performing State public Universities across India, GNDU has received grants amounting to S160 crores from the Government of India. In addition, grants amounting to S482 crores from Government of India and S39 crores from the Government of Punjab are in the pipeline. All this has been possible because of the academic and research excellence achieved by its faculty and students with the Vice-Chancellor as their guiding force. The h index of the University, a metric to measure the productivity and impact of research publications, has steadily increased from 64 in 2017 to 98 in 2019. The faculty has been recognized for their excellence for their publications, patents as well as research awards. Several MoU’s and collaborations have been signed between GNDU and International, National and private organizations and institutions such as Cornell University and University of South Florida of USA.

With the honorable Vice-Chancellor’s vision to take GNDU to the pinnacle of success, while other state universities have seen a decline in student admissions, GNDU witnessed an increase of 22% in admissions across various courses in the last two years. Several new courses have been initiated which have increased the intake of foreign students. The placement results have been excellent.The University has also invested in several extracurricular activities in the form of students’ activity clubs, gymnasium and psychological counseling center etc. for its students’ physical and mental well-being. With a reverent intention to acquaint the younger generation with their cultural roots, GNDU has published a magnificent coffee table book, Amritsar and Guru Nanak Dev University: The Contours of Inheritance. It has also been awarded the prestigious Maulana Abul Kalam Azad trophy for overall excellence in Sports for 23^rd time in 2018. In the North Zone and National Inter-University Youth Festivals, GNDU was a winner in 2017-18 and a runner up in 2018-19. Under his leadership, the faculty has received their promotions on time and arrears to amount of S1.6 crores has been disbursed.

GNDU has also been recognized for its efforts in reducing carbon footprint and maintaining cleanliness by being ranked 2^ndamongst the cleanest higher educational institutions in the country in the category of Government Universities by MHRD. Installation of rooftop solar energy plant, use of e-rickshaws, massive tree plantation programmes and being a zero discharge campus are some of the efforts in this direction.