Chandigarh April 20, 2022
Teachers of University Institute of Engineering & Technology (UIET) met Vice Chancellor of Panjab University today and submitted a representation to him signed by teachers of UIET. In the representation, teachers of UIET have demanded that individual branches of UIET should be upgraded to full-fledged independent departments. As of now UIET has 6 Engineering branches v.i.z Mechanical, Electrical & Electronics, Computer Science, IT, Biotechnology, and Electronics that are under administrative control of Director of UIET. Each branch has a Single Point of Contact (SPoC) that is referred to as “Coordinator” to coordinate affairs of a branch and liason with Director of UIET. Coordinator of a branch of UIET has no financial/administrative power and is required to communicate with higher authorities of PU through Director of UIET. Interesting to observe here that in Panjab University, UG as well as PG courses in Chemical Engineering are run by a full-fledged independent department.
Senate Member Dr Parveen Goyal and Professor Manu Sharma from UIET stated that “In University system, existence of a branch of Engineering instead of a department is very disadvantageous for students, teachers and employees of UIET. Each branch of UIET should be upgraded to an independent department of PU and accordingly designation of “Coordinator” should also be upgraded to “Chairperson”. This way, each branch of UIET will have independent budget and the Chairpersons will have financial as well as administrative powers as specified in PU calender”.
Dr Parveen Goyal said that “Upgradation of branch of UIET to an independent department will be a historic step in right direction as it will empower branches of UIET by giving them some financial, administrative and academic autonomy”.
Dr Naresh Mehandia from UIET argued that UIET is largest department of Panjab University with largest strength of students, largest strength of teachers and largest strength of employees. It is practically difficult to manage such a large department in University system. He further stated that administration of such a large department creates unnecessary bottlenecks and now it is high time that for growth of UIET such bottlenecks should be cleared. Vice Chancellor of Panjab University patiently interacted with the delegation and assured the delegation that he will look into the entire matter at his earliest.
