NITI Aayog Writes To Odisha CM Over Faculty Shortage At BPUT

Bhubaneswar: The Niti Aayog recently wrote to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, requesting the state government to intervene and set things right at Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT), which is reportedly facing a serious faculty crunch.

According to sources, there are only seven faculty members at the premier technical university in Rourkela. “Though BPUT boasts of a dedicated high-performance computing lab and many centres of excellence like artificial intelligence (AI) and aerospace, the university faces a considerable challenge with a limited number of faculty members. It currently has only seven faculty members,” TNIE reported quoting the letter from NITI Aayog member VK Saraswat.

The report further said that the matter came to the fore during a consultation meeting conducted by Niti Aayog with the Vice-Chancellors (V-Cs)of technical institutions of eastern India in October this year. While the electrical engineering department has three regular faculty members, civil engineering has two and mechanical and computer science disciplines have one each. Electrical engineering faculty member teaches electronics engineering.

“We have written to the state government for sanctioning UG faculty strength of 1:2:6 – one professor, two associate professors and six assistant professors. It is under examination,” BPUT V-C Amiya Kumar Rath was quoted as saying.

He further informed that recruitment for PG departments of civil and mechanical engineering was completed recently and the joining process is underway. Interviews for all the vacant positions in the other departments will be carried out next month. The recruitment process is likely to be over by January first week, he added.

The university has around 200 students, pursuing both UG and integrated dual degree courses, while there are 180 seats for PG.