ROURKELA: Alumni of the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela (NIT-R) have mobilised ` one crore and created ‘Prof Ajaya Kumar Mohanty Endowed Chair Professorship’ to promote academic and industrial research in electrical sciences.
Amid degrading research quality and professors remaining overloaded with additional work, a group of alumni felt the need to create a specific post to assist research activities with required fund. Prof LN Bhuyan, currently Professor at University of California Riverside, USA and representing the NIT-R Overseas Alumni Association (NITROAA) along with former Director of IIT Kharagpur Prof D Acharya, former Managing Director of IISCO, SAIL, SP Rao - both representing NIT-R Alumni Association (NITRAA) - recently signed an MoU with NIT-R in this connection. An initial corpus fund of `85 lakh has been set aside.
In another development on Tuesday, members of the NITRAA including vice-president Prof SK Patel, general secretary Prof Shantanu Behera, treasurer Bimal Bisi and co-treasurer Prof HB Sahu mobilised `15 lakh and handed over to NIT-R Director Prof Animesh Biswas for smooth functioning of the Chair.
Prof Behera said the Chair Professorship has been named after Late Prof AK Mohanty of Electrical Engineering Department as a mark of respect. He said the endowment fund will remain in perpetuity and would be open for donations.