Bhubaneswar, March 11: The long-awaited revamp of the Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT) is on the cards as the varsity authorities have decided to appoint experienced personnel for all important positions that have been lying vacant here.
The decision for fresh recruitments was made following the intervention of chief secretary Bijay Kumar Pattnaik last week.
Established in 2002, BPUT includes over 150 colleges across the state. But, it had been functioning with just three permanent staff members all these years. This manpower crunch had been hampering the day-to-day management and other academic and official activities of the premier university for technical education whose current student strength exceeds 80,000.
Besides, the BPUT has continuously been dogged with complaints of mismanagement, delay in conducting exams and announcement of results, problems in evaluation and distribution of certificates. Students enrolled in various colleges affiliated to the varsity have also staged demonstrations, demanding a central placement cell, uniform fee structure, proper rechecking of exam papers and adherence to the academic calendar.
Along with them, the promoters of private engineering colleges in the state under the BPUT had also threatened to close down their respective institutes if the state government did not revamp the functioning of the nine-year-old university.
The private engineering college owners and administrators alleged that the inefficient functioning of the BPUT had forced students to take admission in other deemed universities or move outside the state. Engineering schools had been grumbling that the university did not conduct proper teachers’ training programmes.
However, fresh appointments have now been ordered for all the senior administrative positions at the BPUT, including those of registrar, director of examinations, director of curriculum development, director of placement and industrial training, deputy registrar, deputy director of examinations (MBA/ MCA) and deputy director examinations (engineering), which is expected to take care of the prevailing problems.
“With these recruitments, the varsity would be able to function in a more organised manner. The newly appointed personnel would be posted on the Rourkela campus,” said BPUT registrar in charge P.K. Satpathy. “It would help the BPUT ensure a proper curriculum and streamline the examination and evaluation system for undergraduate as well as postgraduate degrees in engineering, management, computer application, pharmacy, hotel management and architecture,” he added.
