Delhi's St. Stephen's college is looking at investing Rs 130 crore to revamp the college by 2050. While celebrating 130 years of its existence on Tuesday, the college unveiled a master plan or vision for 2050 for the college. The college is planning to revamp the infrastructure and academic facilities of the college with the help of the eminent alumni of the college.

A committee has been constituted by the college to draft the master plan for the college. It includes members like B G Verghese, a former editor, Professor Dinesh Singh, vice-chancellor of Delhi university, Ved Marwah, former governor of Mizoram and Jharkhand, Valson Thampu, principal of the college and many others.

Speaking at the function, Navin Chawla, the ex-chief election commissioner said that it is important that “Excellence should not be diluted” from the institution. Aditya, a student in the college said that infrastructure of the college required immediate attention. “We (the students) feel that we don’t need to wait for 2050 to begin new courses like psychology and sociology in the college.”

B G Verghese, who is the chairperson of the focus group on academic courses for ‘vision 2050’, said that the courses offered by the college today were the same as those offered by it when he joined St. Stephen’s 67 years ago. Talking about the vision document he said it was important to have a plan. “If we have the idea, then the finance will follow,” Verghese added.

While presenting the vision document to the audience, Amitabh Kant, a civil servant and an alumnus said that there was a need to do something radically for the college. “Some buildings are on the verge of breakdown and cracks have also developed,” he said.

Montek  Singh Ahluwalia, the deputy chairperson of the planning commission, also an alumnus, was felicitated by the college at the event. “In the coming decades, spinning out the vision 2050 will be a tough task owing to phenomenal structural and generational changes,” he said.  He also said that post graduate students of the college may apply for internship programmes at the planning commission.

The election commissioner, S Y Quraishi said that there was no point imitating in the IIMs and the IITs. “Rather, (we) should consolidate on own strength,” he added. He said that there was a paucity of good avenues for science education in the country St. Stephen’s could fill in such gaps in the education sector.

Thampu said that college had already received a donation of Rs 2.5 crore to renovate the science block and this was a beginning.