By TCN News,
Darul Musannefin Shibli Academy, Azamgarh, on Sunday rejected a donation of Rs 5 lakh from the UP government, saying the institution was deeply hurt and dismayed with the paltry amount.
The institute, which is one of the foremost centres of Islamic learning, said in a release that except for a grant of Rs 60,000 received in 1952 through the efforts of Jawaharlal Nehru and Maulana Azad, it has rarely received any aid from any government. “It was therefore, heartening when (UP) Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav declared in a rally at Azamgarh that the needs of the Shibli Academy will be taken care of. We were asked by his office more than once to furnish proposals for the future plans of the Academy.”
The Academy sent a proposal of Rs 20 crore for creation of the necessary infrastructure, construction of a well-equipped library, administrative block and creation of a corpus, confident that its needs will be considered by the state government. “But we were deeply hurt and dismayed when a grant of Rs 5 lakh was announced in the recent Budget for this heritage institute of national importance. We are at a loss to understand the rationale and the criterion that was used to determine our needs and amount of the grant,” the press release said.
“It will not be possible to accept this grant as it neither in consonance with the great services and achievements of the Institution nor commensurate with its needs,” the release added.