Bhubaneswar, April 7: Five new postgraduate courses have been introduced at Biju Patnaik University and Technology. Technical education minister Pratap Keshari Deb announced this while inaugurating two hostels and a lab building at the College of Engineering and Technology.

The courses include computer science, power system engineering, mechanics design, biotechnology, Very Large Scale Integration and embedded systems.

“The MTech programmes will have 18 seats each. However, since the BPUT campus at Rourkela does not have the required infrastructure yet, the classes will initially be held at the government-run College of Engineering and Technology (CET) in Bhubaneswar. Students will move to the Rourkela campus once the facility is ready,” said Deb.

He said the new facilities at CET, including the lab complex, boys’ hostel — the Ramanujan Hall of Residence, and the girls hostel — Kalpana Chawla Hall of Residence, has been set up at a cost of Rs 15 crore. Steps are also being taken towards examination reforms, filling up vacant seats and faculty positions in the tech colleges. The government had increased the seats from 390 to 740 at CET-Bhubaneswar in March.

The increase came into effect in all core branches and an amount of Rs 10 crore for each programme has been allotted for the purpose.

“The increase of seats will help more meritorious students to get subsidised technical education,” said an officer of the technical education department. Seats were also increased at Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology and Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology.