Rourkela, April 7: Biju Patnaik University of Technology has taken up some ambitious initiatives for its doctoral students as part of its industry-institute interface.

"We have inked a deal with Tech Mahindra and the company will provide a laboratory for 25 PhD students to conduct research. Apart from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, no university has formalised such an agreement," said BPUT vice-chancellor Shyam Sundar Pattnaik today.

He said that the company would hire 100 more such students if it was satisfied with the performance of the first batch of students. Also, each research student would be allotted two MTech students to assist them in their coursework," the VC said.

Pattnaik said that university had been receiving encouraging responses to a similar proposal. He had held a discussion with the company's vice-president.

"Larsen & Toubro has also shown interest in the same," he said.

Besides, the BPUT and Punjab Engineering College University have also signed a deal for collaborative programmes. "This will help our students to crack GRE and GMAT as huge number of students from Punjab Engineering College also crack these examinations. The thrust areas will be for students from Koraput and Kalahandi," said Pattnaik.

The university held for the first time a National Board of Accreditation (NBA) workshop, which was in fact the second time it took place in the country. "This was held to help all constituent colleges as NAAC and NBA are two primary recognition required by all institutes," said Pattnaik.

For faculty development, BPUT has signed an MoU with National Institute for Technical Teachers Training and Research, Chandigarh.

The vice-chancellor said: "The university has 297 fresh PhD students in different disciplines and the total number of students pursing doctoral research are now 410. For the current academic year, we have already received 720 applications, which shows the growing stature of the university."

The vice-chancellor was hopeful that if the Tech Mahindra experiment became successful, over 100 students would be directly working under the programme.

Pattnaik said the university would distribute 64,000 certificates to the students who had completed their courses and thus be able to clear a huge backlog of the last several years. The seventh convocation will be held on April 17. The certificates will be given to their respective colleges for distribution.