Bhubaneswar, June 22: Staff members, as well as students, of the Utkal University of Culture appealed to chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday, during the World Music Day celebrations, to help raise the standard of the university in order to avail University Grants Commission (UGC) funds.

The appeal has been made as the employees claim that the culture university was facing a fund crunch since it did not fulfil the UGC guidelines to avail funds.

Established in 1999, Utkal University of Culture offers postgraduation courses in fine arts and visual arts, drama, various streams of Indian classical music and dance as well as in other fields such as hospitality and tourism. Though 40 institutions, including four government colleges and institutes, are affiliated to it, the university continues to run on leased land in Unit II.

“To avail funds from the UGC, which is the central body to provide financial grants to varsities, any university needs to fulfil three major conditions,” said vice-chancellor Amiya Kumar Pattanayak. “There should be at least five postgraduate departments, which we have. But these need to have at least 30 permanent teachers with six in each department. Sadly, we have only three permanent teachers, whereas the rest are guest faculty,” he said.

The university also does not fulfil the conditions of having its own campus with hostel facilities as stated in the UGC guidelines. A well-furnished state-of-the-art library is also another UGC requirement.

“Our own campus is coming up in Madanpur and will be ready by 2012. We also have proper library facilities. But so far, only 19 permanent teaching posts have been sanctioned by the state government and we have appealed for 11 more,” said Sachindra Raul, the registrar of the university.

While chief minister Naveen Patnaik assured that the issue would be looked into by the department of culture, which manages affairs of the university, the minister concerned, Prafulla Samal, promised that initiatives would be taken immediately.

“We are taking initiatives to address the issue so that the deficiencies in the academic courses are fulfilled and the university can avail UGC funds. We will soon hold a high-level meeting and are hopeful to come up with solutions,” said Samal, adding that the culture department would seek the assistance of the chief minister if the matter could not be resolved at their level.