Infrastructure and Facilities
The Department has established several state-of-the-art facilities for teaching and research, which are available for use by postgraduate students, research scholars and faculty. The following are a representative list of facilities available. The Departmental teaching and research facilities, wherever possible, are accessible to differently abled.
The Department is connected to the University-wide network through “MyDU” which can be accessed via official e-mail as Login-ID by students, faculty and staff.
- Classroom and teaching laboratories
- Auditorium
- Herbarium
- Museum
- Library and Information Services
- Instrumentation Facility (CIF 1&2)
- Growth rooms and Green houses
- Garden
- Medical room
- Students Lounge
Classroom and teaching laboratories: The Department of Botany has completely ICT enabled, four lecture rooms and four laboratories, for teaching. In addition, specialized facilities are available for teaching (see below).
Bioinformatics laboratory: The Department of Botany has a well-structured bioinformatics facility with Sun SUNFIRE X4170 servers operational on Linux and Windows platforms. Thirty-five students can work simultaneously on independent thin clients (terminals).
Auditorium: The Department has a 150-seater auditorium that is a venue for conferences and lectures and other academic activities of the department, and the University.
Herbarium: The Delhi University Herbarium (DUH), housing nearly 13,000 dried plant specimens, has grown manifold since its inception in 1953 when work on “Flora of Delhi” was initiated. The herbarium houses specimens of vascular plants, mosses, and fungi collected from different parts of India. Specimens maintained by the herbarium include unmounted research vouchers and mounted accessioned specimens that document the local flora. Facilities include the recently added compressors and digitizer. Visitors and students from various colleges visit the herbarium for identification of plants. The herbarium specimens are now being digitized. Requests for deposition of specimen and allotment of DUH registry number can be submitted to Prof. P.L.Uniyal / Dr. Shruti Kasana
Museum: The Museum of Botanical Diversity in the Department of Botany houses the collection of botanical specimens gathered by the late Prof. P. Maheshwari, and further augmented from time to time by faculty members and students of the Department. The facility houses specimens of various groups such as algae, fungi, bryophytes, pteridophytes, gymnosperms and angiosperms as well as plants of economic importance. The museum caters to the needs of researchers, post-graduate and visiting undergraduate students.
Library and Information Services: The Departmental library is an extension of the Central Library (https://crl.du.ac.in/) and Central Science LIbrary (https://csl.du.ac.in/ ). The Departmental library is located on the first floor in Room number 210. It houses a total of 8240 books, 314 doctoral theses and 379 M. Phil dissertations. The library includes reading space as well as computers for use by students.
The Central Reference Library and Central Science Library provided the gateway to access e-books, journals and databases for teaching and research purposes.
Central Instrumentation Facility (CIF 1&2):
The CIF includes several basic instruments, which are routinely used for teaching various courses in the M.Sc. program. Some of these include PCR machines, spectrophotometer, refrigerated microfuge, gel electrophoresis units (horizontal) and electrophoresis power supplies, electroporator, pH Meters, stirrers, vortexers, dry blocks, table-top centrifuges (non-refrigerated), Refrigerated bench-top and floor model centrifuges, temperature-controlled incubator shaker, plant growth chambers, plant growth rooms, UV transilluminator, micro- and macro- weighing balances, refrigerated water baths and micropipette sets, BOD incubator, incubator oven (2 high temperature, 3 routine), automated soil CO2 flux system, microtome, Altimeter, GPS system, soil thermometer, soil colour chart, Kjeldahl system digestion unit, fluorimeter, Nikon/Carl Zeiss microscopes and Olympus binoculars, pollen and spore samplers (portable) and a refractometer. Additionally, the CIF is also equipped with high-end instruments viz., high-speed centrifuge, gel documentation system, fluorescence microscope, sonicator, Speed vac, gel dryer, Luciferase Imaging Camera, HPLC, Nitric oxide analyzer and Real time PCR. The facility also has -80℃ and -20℃ freezers for use by various laboratories. Among other common facilities is a water purification system, Ice-flaker machine, autoclaves and cold rooms that cater to various research laboratories.
Apart from the Departmental Instrumental Facility (CIF), the scholars also have access to the University Science Instrumentation Centre (https://usic.du.ac.in/).
Microscopy facilities: The Department of Botany has also established facilities for Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Confocal Microscope with funds obtained from University of Delhi and the Department of Science and Technology under the FIST program, respectively.
Growth rooms and Green houses: The Departmental facilities include a central plant tissue culture room, three greenhouses under different temperature regimes and photoperiod conditions for growth of different plant materials. Additionally, growth rooms for growing plants under control conditions are also available. The Department also has a central microbial culture facility
Garden: The Department has a botanical garden that houses several plants of academic interest for teaching and research.
Medical Room: A Medical Room is available for students and staff of the Department. The members of the Department can also access the University health Center (http://healthcentre.du.ac.in/wus-new/) located nearby.
Student lounge:
The Department has an air-conditioned Student’s Lounge with a small cafeteria that is operational during break time between classes.