Biju Patnaik University of Technology

Bhubaneswar, Sept. 15: The technical education department has directed all engineering institutes under the Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT) to designate a faculty member as the nodal officer in their respective grievance-redress cells.

“Since the faculty members spend so much time in the colleges and are aware of the issues concerning students, they will be able to respond better to grievances... To make it easier, we have also instructed the colleges to make it an automated system,” a senior official of the department said.

Stressing on the need for a better grievance-redress system, the department has asked the colleges to make all efforts to address the needs of students. This apart, colleges have been asked to ensure timely utilisation of funds and take immediate steps to submit the National Bureau of Accreditation (NBA) assessment with immediate effect.

The department has also written to the crime branch to expedite the inquiry related to at least four pending cases including student suicides and forgery of documents.

Earlier this week, the BPUT students’ protection council had met the technical education secretary C.S. Kumar and demanded punishment for the college management responsible for a student committing suicide allegedly due to their inability in paying fees arbitrarily hiked by them.