The administration of the Jawaharlal Nehru University has said that they've written to the UGC for additional grants to ensure that the library's needs are met. In a statement, the university's Financial Officer Heeraman Tiwari said, "JNU has already made a request to the UGC to release additional funds to meet the increasing requirement of the library." Last week, there was a large hue and cry about how JNU was cutting the budget.

Tiwari's letter was released on November 22 as a reply to the Students Union's claims about the university's library budget being slashed by 75 per cent. "Reports that say that the annual budget for the Dr B R Ambedkar (Central) Library of JNU has been reduced from Rs 8 Crore to Rs 1.70 Crore are completely baseless," he says. According to the letter, JNU always had Rs 1.70 Crore allotted as its library budget. But in 2012, UGC released a bulk grant under the 12th five-year plan to the library, in addition to the regular budget. So this permitted the university to have around Rs 8 Crore per year until 2017 and in 2018, since the excess funds have dried up, the budget is back to the original R 1.70 Crore. 

But the JNUSU, at the same time denied all the claims that Tiwari had made and accused him of hiding the amount that the UGC released. "Laying blame on UGC is a half-truth," a statement said."The library used to have an annual budget of 7-8 crores which the admin used to spend from various sources. Now if one source has dried up, isn't it the admin's responsibility to push for alternatives as soon as possible?" it questioned. It also sought why the University's VC Mamidala Jagadeesh Kumar, who is a member of the UGC didn't object to the reduction of funds.