The BPUT office in Bhubaneswar. (file picture)

Bhubaneswar, Sept. 6: Students under the banner of All Orissa BPUT Students’ Association (AOBSA) today blamed the deteriorating quality of Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT) for huge number of vacant seats in engineering and management colleges of the state.

In a letter to chief minister Naveen Patnaik, the AOBSA students wrote that the mismanagement of Orissa’s only technical university, which has 110 colleges with around 58,000 students, is the prime reason behind the declining quality of technical education in the state.

Seeking the chief minister’s immediate intervention, the students blamed the varsity’s management of delaying in issuing pass-out certificates, adopting faulty marking system and of not adhering to norms of the University Grants Commission (UGC).

The association also alleged that while students of the 2011 batch have already passed out, students of the 2010 batch are yet to receive their final certificates.

“No other university in the country takes one and half years to provide a certificate. It is possible only in Orissa because the government here is ignorant about technical education,” said Sreesendu Panda, secretary, AOBSA.

The authorities had even failed to arrange convocation ceremony for the 2010 batch, he added. To promote research and development, the UGC has permitted universities to allow BTech students with 60 per cent marks to be directly allowed to pursue PhD course without a master’s degree. While national as well as state universities, including KIIT University, Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (S‘o’A) University, XIMB, and Centurion University follow this norm, the BPUT has rejected all such requests from eligible students.

“The university is practising double standards. We wonder why the government is silent on the issue,” said Panda.

The students also alleged that the varsity was yet to devise a way of finding out percentage from the grade points awarded in exams. The authorities, however, continued to cite that there was no need of converting its grade-based system into percentage system.

While hiring students, all PSUs and central government organisations, however, ask for percentage of marks in the last qualification, leaving BPUT students in confusion.

“This has ruined the life of many potential students of BPUT. It is, therefore, no wonder that about 30 to 40 per cent students appearing for the OJEE opt to study outside Orissa. This has created large-scale vacancies in engineering and management colleges of the state,” said Amit, a member of the AOBSA.

The students also alleged of large-scale corruption at the varsity in the absence of a proper leadership. Earlier this month, the AOBSA students had gheroed the BPUT office here demanding revocation of “unjustified” fee hike in private institutions, timely conduct of exams and publication of results.