If you are one of those who wish to honour the bejewelled academic performances of students by sponsoring medals, you better boast a heart of gold. Amid rising gold prices together with meeting the overall rise in administration costs, universities in Gujarat are hiking their medal sponsorship amount.
Gujarat University has quadrupled the sponsorship amount from Rs 50,000 in 2018 to Rs 2 lakh. The varsity awards about 175 medals to meritorious students every year. Hemchandracharya North Gujarat University (HNGU) too hiked its medal sponsorship amount from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh. The Krantiguru Shyamji Krishna Verma Kutch University increased its medal sponsorship amount from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 2 lakh. The university bestows 25 medals every year.
Some of the reasons universities have cited for the hike are an increase in gold and silver prices and lower income from interest on deposits. Varsities also have other recurring costs in the form of communication to donors about the medals. “We have to write to donors every year, informing them about the recipients of the medals they have sponsored. In many cases, multiple letters have to be sent because the donors are not available at a given address. All this adds to the costs,” said a varsity official.
“The increasing costs of gold and silver and the falling interest rates on our deposits have forced the university to increase the medal sponsorship amount,” said GU vice-chancellor Himanshu Pandya. HNGU vice-chancellor JJ Vora said the university confers 80 medals every year and raising the sponsorship corpus was inevitable to meet the costs.
