A mini-stadium, a state-of-the-art digital lab and other infrastructure will be built by the Telangana government at the Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies (RGUKT), also popularly known as IIIT Basara in Nirmal district, Telangana Information Technology Minister K T Rama Rao on Monday, September 26 told the students of the institute, to address their pending demands.

Rama Rao, who visited the RGUKT where students held protests over alleged inferior quality of food and other poor facilities during the last few months, said he would visit the campus again in November along with Education Minister P Sabitha Indra Reddy to distribute laptops to the students, as stated in a report by PTI.

He has requested Sports Minister V Srinivas Goud to construct the mini-stadium at a cost Rs 3 crore and that the stadium would come up in six to eight months, a release from his office said, as per PTI.

The other announcements include a state-of-the-art digital lab with 1,000 computers, 50 additional model classrooms and an innovation lab at the university.

The Minister said the response was not satisfactory for the tenders floated for the mess contract and that a sincere effort is being put in to get a good contractor. During his address, he allotted enough time to impress upon the students the importance of entrepreneurship.

Earlier, he had lunch with students and interacted with them about their aspirations and other topics, the release said. State Education Minister Sabitha Indra Reddy and Forest and Environment Minister Allola Indrakaran Reddy spoke about the efforts put in since the last two months to improve facilities at the university. Goud and others were also present on the occasion.

To recall..
Students of the university had carried out a long series of protests starting in June and made 11 demands including the appointment of a regular Vice-Chancellor, improving facilities on campus and more. Education Minister Sabitha Indra Reddy had then visited the campus and assured the students that their demands will be met.

Additionally, over 200 students had suffered from food poisoning after consuming food from the campus mess. The students had demanded implementation of the assurances given by the government to call off their protest in July along with the removal of the caterers for serving poor quality food that is causing food poisoning and other health problems.

The student unions had also blamed the administration after a first-year BTech student of the university, Suresh Rathod, died by suicide in his hostel room on August 23. It was their allegation that even after an hour of being informed, the administration failed to respond while there was no ambulance available on campus at the time. They said that they were forced to summon an ambulance, losing precious time in the process, as per a report by The New Indian Express.