JOIN USVTU launched courses other than those sanctioned
The Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) under Vice Chancellor H Maheshappa is said to have introduced eight new courses in MTech in place of courses sanctioned by the State government.
Besides, VTU is said to have hired faculty for these courses without the approval of the VTU Executive Council (EC) and the government.
The VTU has also distributed the courses across three PG Centres while all the courses were meant for Visvesvaraya Institute of Advanced Technology (VIAT) at Muddenahalli in Chikkaballapur district, documents available with Deccan Herald show.
Eight MTech programmes out of 18 have been changed without seeking the EC’s permission. Interestingly, the EC and the State government had approved five courses for VIAT alone. But all the five were changed on the grounds that the government-sanctioned courses had not yet begun at the VIAT. The documents show that reason given for change in courses is that the government “courses had not yet been started”.
The first set of new courses introduced were MTech in computer science and engineering, Thermal engineering and nano-technology in place of MTech in Cyber Systems, mechanical engineering and nano-Bio technology. These changes were for the Mysuru and Bengaluru centers.
And then in the Muddenahalli centre, five courses were replaced - MTech Digital Forensic and Resources of Geo-Systems of Engineering to M.Tech in CAE, Digital Electronics and Communication systems, MTech in advanced manufacturing technology renewable energy management and bio-medical engineering to M.Tech in structural engineering, machine design and construction engineering.
These five courses were meant exclusively for VIAT, Muddenahalli, but were later divided between Bengaluru, Mysuru and Kalaburagi PG centres.
The State government had sanctioned these courses in July 2012 (11-07-2012) and the courses were altered in March 2013 (16-3-2013 and 20-3-2013). The total number of posts sanctioned for the engineering courses was 168 and of which 30-odd posts may have been filled up for the new courses.
When contacted, Maheshappa said: “Nothing can be done without the permission of the EC and the government. We had to change certain courses because the older courses were not job-oriented. What do we do when students say they havent’ found jobs after taking up the course? We receive such complaints. What job will you get after doing a M.Tech in Forensics? Nothing. That is why we brought in job-oriented courses. If there was no approval for the courses, why would the KEA admit students to VTU through CET? It must mean that government is in approval of what we have done”
He further said: “The previous dispensation at VTU was unnecessarily ambitious about some courses, but nothing worked and we had to change them. Also, the government -sanctioned courses had not yet been started. In the meanwhile, we thought we could introduce courses that students would find useful and we did that. We have not done anything that the Executive Council and government do not know. Everything is legal.”