Bhubaneswar: The Utkal University vice-chancellor will convene meetings on campus every Monday from 3pm to 5pm to address grievances of students, parents, teachers and local residents.

The varsity authorities have sent notices on the issue to all departments and boards informing them about the weekly meeting.

"The state government addresses people's grievances every Monday and we have taken the decision on similar lines. The aim is to make the authorities accessible to people and institutionalise the grievance redress process," said V-C S.M. Patnaik.

Apart from the V-C, other authorities of the varsity will also be present in the meeting. Students, both present and past, parents, retired teachers and employees of the varsity can put forth their complaints at the meeting. Common people, who have questions pertaining to the varsity, can also attend the meet.

"Earlier, I used to address the issues personally and it took sometime to reach out to the concerned person for solutions. But, since a group of people will be there from the varsity, a number of problems can be addressed at that time," Patnaik said.

The anthropology department of the university has been notified as a national resource centres (NRC) for online refresher programmes for higher education faculty members. It has been recently selected among the 75 NRCs notified by the ministry of human resource development.

Patnaik said the varsity would start new courses on the second campus, which would get operational in the 2018-19 academic session. The varsity was recently accorded full autonomy by the University Grants Commission.