After being in the news for wrong reasons such as acute shortage of staff and fall in academic standards, the National Institute of Technology, Calicut, (NIT-C), is bouncing back after taking several corrective measures.
The board of governors of the institute has adopted multiple measures to refurnish its sagging image by commencing recruitment of faculty in a phased manner. Over 60 new faculty members with PhD and post-doctoral qualifications have been absorbed in various disciplines recently.
The institute has been drawing flak for an acute shortage of staff with 50% of the teaching faculty placed on ad hoc basis. The has been no recruitment at the NIT-C for the past seven years
However, NIT-C Registrar K. Pankajakshan told The Hindu on Wednesday that administrative issues were being solved quickly. Also, the institute has been performing well both on placements and admissions this year.
This is despite the decline in the National Institutions Ranking Framework (NIRF) of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD). From 35th rank (2016) it slipped to 44th rank (2017) and now stood at 50th rank (2018) in the engineering colleges category at the national level.
“Hopefully, we will improve the situation next year with more outreach activities and consultancy programmes,” he said.
Laudable effort
Lt. Col. Pankajakshan said an initiative of the NIT-C to convert assorted plastics to useful petroleum products had received praise under the Swachh Bharat Mission and the MHRD is fully funding the project. The institute had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the FACT Engineering Design and Organisation, the consultancy division of Kochi-based FACT Ltd, for the design and implementation of a pilot plant for converting waste plastic into energy.
Likewise,the NIT-C has signed an MoU with the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram, for research collaboration in different health care fields of biomedical, bioinformatics and biosignal processing. Similarly, an agreement has been inked with the Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute at Pilani.
He said the infrastructure facilities are getting expanded with the construction of two hostels for boys by the Central Public Works Department and another one by a private firm. Besides, a new hostel has been proposed to accommodate girls. This apart, the NIT-C has plans to set up an instrumentation facility on the campus.
As for extracurricular activities, the NIT-C has planned to start a NCC Naval Unit, of which 30 % of the strength will be reserved for girls.