The welcome arch at the convocation venue of Utkal University. President Pranab Mukherjee will attend the event as the chief guest on Thursday. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, April 24: Utkal University will award 226 scholars with PhD degrees, 96 students with gold medals and three eminent persons — Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Dr Sanatan Rath and retired Justice R.K. Patra — with honorary degrees tomorrow.

However, most of the toppers haven’t yet received their entry passes for the event. Some of them were not even aware of the ceremony.

“I came to know of the convocation and the President’s visit from the media. Till yesterday, I was waiting for a communication from the university. As I did not receive any message from the authorities, I came here to enquire,” said Jyotika, a topper in postgraduate commerce, who will be receiving a gold medal from President Pranab Mukherjee. Today, she was seen running from pillar to post to get her entry pass.

Aditya, a topper from BJB College, said he had come to enquire about the event yesterday but was told to get a letter from his college principal.

“Today I submitted the letter, but now I have been asked to get the letter attested. I am not sure if I will get the pass,” he said.

Even officials of the 70-year-old varsity had no convincing answers in this regard. “We tried to contact the students over the phone, but many of them have changed their numbers after moving for higher studies. Letters may not have reached them due to postal delay,” said an official dealing with passes.

“The biggest problem is seats. We have 4,000 students while the number of seats is 3,000 that include 500 for the invited guests, 2,000 for students and 300 for the awardees. However, things are being worked out,” said Tanmay, president of the students’ union.

Students who wish to bring along their parents or siblings have been asked to enter the main convocation hall alone.

“The hall will not be able to accommodate so many people and so we have arranged for a big screen at the MKCG auditorium from where parents and relatives of the students can watch the event,” said P.K. Mishra, postgraduate council chairman.

Chaos continued to prevail at the convocation venue with the authorities unable to complete arrangements by the stipulated time.

“The venue was to be handed over to the police by around 12pm today, but things aren’t in place yet,” said Mishra.

Alleging that the event management group had delayed in completing the task within the stipulated time, senior academics of the varsity said that the venue was nowhere near completion. Promoters of the event management company said that the assignment was given just five days ago.

“It’s a lot of work and there are protocol issues too,” said Siddharth, an official from the company.

“Things would have been fine if we had an auditorium of our own. We would not have had to shell out the money to some private party and face such a situation. We have been demanding an auditorium from a long time but the state government never paid heed,” said a senior faculty of the varsity.