Biju Patnaik University of Technology

Bhubaneswar, Nov. 21: Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT) authorities have decided to invite annual projects from students in constituent colleges to encourage innovative ideas.

Speaking at the 12th foundation day celebrations of the technical varsity today, vice-chancellor J.K. Satpathy said: “The projects will be thoroughly evaluated and the best 10 will be awarded and then taken up for further research.”

He, however, warned against plagiarism. “We have asked our associate colleges to run the projects through anti-plagiarism software to ensure that they are original. The university will also scrutinise them through sophisticated software. If we find that the ideas have been borrowed from the internet or copied from any source, the student, guide teacher and college concerned will be penalised,” he added.

Satpathy also stressed on the need of education where training and evaluation would be done in an open manner for the country to produce more employable graduates.

“Under the Rastriya Uchha Sikshya Abhiyan scheme, the Centre is going to pump in Rs 1 lakh crore in the 12th and 13th plans and the share of Odisha will be around Rs 3,000 crore. The state universities would benefit most out of it,” he said.

He said that the university had opened four MTech programmes and would add two more next year.

Chairman-cum-managing director of Mahanadi Coalfields Limited, A.N. Sahay was the chief guest on the occasion. “The whole process of education should have honesty in it, else all our efforts would be nullified to create a strong and vibrant technical workforce,” he said, echoing Satpathy’s words.

“When we visit campuses, leaving apart the crème institutes, we find only 10 per cent students are employable. This shows a big discrepancy in producing quality manpower. Teachers have a great role to play in inspiring the students and come forward with new ideas which can be put to use in real life scenarios,” Sahay said.

Urging students to join core branches, he said: “I find there is a charge towards the IT sector which is very disturbing. Even mining students want to join the IT sector. Growth in IT is fast in the initial years, but in core fields, the long term rewards are more.”