Batu regional centre becomes headless body

Aurangabad: Pralhad Lulekar, in-charge of regional centre of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Technological University ( BATU ) has stepped down citing indifference from the the top authorities.

The government did not sanction any post to the regional centre so far, BATU on its own had created total eight posts. Of these eight posts, only three are currently filled.

Total of around 36 leading engineering colleges from Aurangabad and the region have sought affiliation to BATU after cutting ties with Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University (Bamu).

Lulekar said he decided to quit as his requests for filling up vacant posts were ignored.

“The number of affiliated colleges from the region had increased over a period of time hoping for the better administration. It is very difficult to give justice to the administrative work and other responsibilities due to the staff crunch. It was difficult to remain patient and therefore I decided to step down,” he said.

During December last year, then Vice Chancellor of Batu, V G Gaikar, had offered to resign, but later was convinced to complete his term. Gaikar too demanded for adequate manpower and financial assistance to the university and was unhappy with the alleged no quick steps from the state government.

Student activist Tukaram Saraf said it was wrong on the part of the state government to neglect the technology university. “Since its inception, Batu has been starving for funds and manpower. Batu was expected to be nourished by the government during its formative years,”he said.

When contacted, Batu registrar S B Deosarkar said he was busy in some official work. Another senior BATU official on the condition of anonymity, said the university headquarters was reeling under staff crunch. “We have been following up with the state government in the matter of funds and manpower,” he said.

Batu currently offers 32 undergraduate, 62 postgraduate and certain number of PhD programmes. The university, which offers programmes in the disciplines of engineering, pharmacy, architecture and hotel management and catering technology, has student strength of over 22,000, as per the official records.

Batu has affiliation with over 100 colleges, including nearly 70 engineering colleges and rest pharmacy and architecture colleges, from different parts.

The university had proposed regional centres at four metros- Aurangabad, Nagpur, Pune and Mumbai along with sub-centre each at Solapur, Kolhapur, Amravati and Jalgaon. Initially set-up on the campus of Government Engineering College here, the regional centre was later shifted on the premise of Marathwada Auto Cluster at Waluj in absence of its own land.