New Delhi, Sept. 9: The alumni of Odisha's first engineering institution have made a strong pitch for the status of 'Institute of National Importance' following the footsteps of the former Bengal Engineering and Science University (Besu).

The alumni association of Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology (VSSUT) of Burla has recently met senior officials of human resource development ministry and presented a memorandum seeking the status for the institute.

Institutes, such as the IITs, the NITs and the AIIMS, are given the status of 'Institute of National Importance'.

Once given the status, the institutes are taken over by the central government from the holds of the state. Besu, which was an institution under the Bengal government till 2013, was taken over by the central government after it was conferred the status of 'Institute of National Importance' and subsequently renamed as the Indian Institute of Engineering, Science and Technology (IIEST).

The institution, with a student strength of 4,800 and faculty strength of 300, offers undergraduate, postgraduate and Ph.D. courses. Spread on 200 acres, the campus offers Wi-Fi and biometric attendance, the memorandum said. The nearest airport Raipur is about 150km away from the VSSUT.

Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik had written to the Centre in 2004 seeking the IIT status for the VSSUT. In 2015, then Odisha chief secretary G.C. Pati also wrote to central higher education secretary seeking the 'Institute of National Importance' status.

'The ministry officials said there was not much scope for upgrade of state-level institutions to the status. But, we are not going to be discouraged,' said VSSUT Alumni Association president Bimal Mishra.