The 1997 batch of Utkal University on the campus during an alumni meet in Bhubaneswar. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, Nov. 28: Former students of the Utkal University have decided to pool in money to provide financial assistance to needy students pursuing post graduation at the university.

On the occasion of the university’s 69th Foundation Day yesterday, nearly 80 students of the 1997 batch met for the first time in 14 years at a temple on the campus.

“You would be surprised to know that there are quite a few students at Utkal, who cannot even afford notebooks and pens. Therefore, we have decided to extend help in the form of money and study material to the financially weak students,” said alumnus Prakash Tripathy, who is a businessman based in Dhenkanal.

These ex-students have decided to pool in at least Rs 50,000 within a year for this purpose.

A 14-member core committee, comprising ex-students staying in and around the capital, has been constituted. This committee will approach the heads of all the 27 post graduation departments of the university with the proposal by the end of this year.

“We would ask them to recommend the needy students and on this basis, and help them by paying their tuition fee or buying textbooks, notebooks and other study material,” said Piyush Ranjan Rout, ex-student and an urban planning consultant.

He said around 300 students from the batch were contacted last week to attend the alumni meet on Sunday.

“There were more than 1,000 students in our batch, most of whom are based outside Odisha and even abroad. We were able to reach 300 friends and are confident that we would be able to track down others very soon,” he said.

Another former student Sushant Patra said they would undertake campus beautification work by “adopting” a particular stretch of road in the university premises.

“We want to adopt the road stretching from the vice-chancellor’s office to ladies’ hostel No.1. However, everything depends on the approval of the university authorities. We will formally approach them in this regard within the next one month,” said Patra, who is a faculty member of the archaeology department at Utkal University.

Tripathy said most of his batch mates were government employees, businessmen and worked in the corporate sector.