ROURKELA: With the Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT) at Rourkela failing to show any visible progress in the academic front and its campus shrinking, speculations are rife that the campus would be shifted to Bhubaneswar after the Men’s Hockey World Cup.
The BPUT with its headquarters at Rourkela had come into existence as a State technical university through the BPUT Act, 2002. In May 2003, the then President of India Dr APJ Abdul Kalam had laid its foundation. Sources said since then the university has been moving ahead at a slow pace. Previously, several protests were held over apprehensions that the university may be shifted to Bhubaneswar and the government had been occasionally putting the speculations to rest.
However, rumours of the university’s shifting have again begun with the government last year taking away around 47 acre from its campus to set up mega Birsa Munda Hockey Stadium to host the Men’s Hockey World Cup in January 2023.
Former Rourkela MLA Pravat Mohapatra said the apprehension is not unfounded as the strong lobby of private engineering colleges continues to pursue the bureaucracy to shift the BPUT headquarters to the State capital. “The BJD government’s penchant for high-handedness and non-existent opposition is known to all. “It would not be a surprise if the BPUT headquarters gets unofficially shifted and later an amended Act gets passed in the Odisha Legislative Assembly,” he said.
Meanwhile, with similar apprehension a delegation of the Chhend Sachetan Nagarik Manch led by advisor Ajit Pujari had on Thursday met Minister of State for Skill Development & Technical Education PR Ghadei and apprised him of the sorry state of affairs prevailing in the university. Pujari said the campus has only added building infrastructure and nothing on the academic front.
“For 125 sanctioned seats in five PG engineering programmes, only 75 students have enrolled and seven faculty members present. Nearly two decades later, the varsity has no brand value and academic credibility,” Pujari stated. Meanwhile, Revenue authorities confirmed the university is now left with merely 85 acre of its own.