Bhubaneswar: The Utkal University has decided to put more stress on maintaining cleanliness on the campus following reports that none of universities and colleges of the state succeeded in securing a rank in the swachhata ranking of higher education institutions.

The Union ministry of human resources development conducted the survey.

Varsity vice-chancellor Soumendra Mohan Patnaik said: "We are very much concerned about cleanliness. We have constituted a committee to look into disposal of the garbage and beautify the university landscape."

Stating that cleanliness should be a part of the daily life in the varsity, Patnaik said: "We have a number of proposals which we will implement one by one to make the campus look beautiful. Cleanliness should not be confined to a particular system."

Officials from other universities, including Rama Devi Women's University and Ravenshaw University, have also expressed their intention to make their campuses more beautiful and take up cleanliness awareness programmes among the students.

The Union ministry of human resources development had conducted an exercise to rank higher educational institutions on the basis of cleanliness and hygiene. Various parameters for a clean campus, such as student-toilet ratio, kitchen hygiene, availability of running water, modernity of toilet and kitchen equipment, green cover of campus, garbage disposal in hostels and academic buildings, disposal techniques and water supply systems, were formulated. Importance was also given on the point as to whether the institutions had adopted any neighbouring locality or village to spread awareness and activities on cleanliness.

About 3,500 higher education institutes across the country responded to the online invitation and submitted details following the prescribed format. Later, the Union ministry shortlisted 174 institutions. The officials of the UGC and the AICTE had also inspected the premises of all the 174 institutions. Finally, top 25 institutions across various categories, such as universities, technical institutions, colleges and government institutions, were selected .