BHUBANESWAR: After a delay of two years, the Utkal University of Culture will finally be shifted to its new campus at Madanpur near Jatni by January-end. This was informed by Vice-Chancellor (VC) Kamal Kanta Mishra during the university’s 18th Foundation Day celebration here on Wednesday.
While work on Madanpur campus had started two years back, it was inaugurated in May last year. On November 9, the administrative block of the university was shifted to Madanpur.
The VC said the existing campus behind Jayadev Bhawan in Unit-II will be used as the university’s city research centre. While the entire campus at Madanpur is Wi-fi enabled, it has two 100-seat hostels each for boys and girls. “However, there are many other infrastructure requirements on the new campus which need to be fulfilled for the university to start functioning in a full-fledged manner.
These include a health centre for students, post office and police outpost,” he said, while urging Culture Department Secretary, Manoranjan Panigrahi, who was present on the occasion, to look into the demands.
He informed that recently, educationists from Assam, Andhra Pradesh and Manipur had visited Utkal University of Culture to study the functioning of the institution as there are plans for establishment of similar universities in these States.
“While the university will entirely shift to the permanent campus within this month, the State Government has recently sanctioned 33 new posts, including 10 teaching and 23 non-teaching for the university. These posts will be filled up within two months,” the VC said. Notably, the university is yet to qualify for getting financial assistance from University Grants Commission (UGC) under Section 12B of the UGC Act due to lack of teachers and permanent campus.
Development Commissioner R Balakrishnan graced the event as chief guest and released the annual newsletter of the university ‘Sanskruti’ along with the literary magazine ‘Rupayana’. An art exhibition by students was also organised along with cultural programmes, including staging of a drama based on a story by Fakir Mohan Senapati.