In centenary yr, NU forgets own history but dishes out all info about PU & SNDT

Nagpur: The Nagpur University, which is set to kickstart grand centenary celebrations next week, has no history as an institution or courses to offer to students and also names of colleges on its digital website. Instead, those visiting the website will get all information about two universities from Mumbai and Pune. Though this sounds illogical, but that is the reality.
If you visit https://rtmnu.digitaluniversity.ac/ for seeking information about admission to NU courses, you will see programmes offered by Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersey (SNDT) Women’s University for undergraduate and postgraduate admissions. If you access the column of faculty wise general rules & eligibility criteria, it shows various faculties and courses offered by Mumbai-based university, which are not offered by the NU.
If you want to know about NU’s illustrious history and click on the related link, you will find history of Savitribai Phule Pune University, which was established on February 10, 1949. The NU was established on August 4, 1923, which means it was set up 26 years before the Pune varsity. There is, however, no information about NU history. If this is not enough, former Pune University vice-chancellor Nitin Karmarkar’s name is mentioned in the administration column as VC along with NS Umarani as pro-VC and Prafulla Pawar as registrar, instead of NU bosses.
NU would be celebrating its foundation day next week and would be kickstarting its grand centenary celebrations in the presence of chancellor BS Koshyari, Union minister Nitin Gadkari and Homi Bhabha National Institute chancellor and eminent nuclear physicist Anil Kakodkar at Suresh Bhat auditorium on August 4. The university has, however, failed to update its website since 2019.
NU teachers who pointed out these discrepancies to TOI said students, parents and other visitors would easily get confused and may think that Karmarkar is NU VC.
Even the ‘mission and vision’ column on the website displays Pune University’s goals. The ‘online application and admissions’ column having SNDT website details was not updated from May 24, 2019, while the history column from June 13, 2019.
The teachers said, many students had informed them about these discrepancies, and they too were shocked to see that Pune and SNDT universities’ details were being displayed on the website, instead of NU information.
TOI tried to contact NU PRO Dharmesh Dhawankar for details. However, he did not reply to queries sent to him on why the website was not updated for over two years.
This is not the first time NU has failed to update its website. “The new administration under Chaudhari had made tall promises of transforming the university into a digital one, but hardly made efforts to walk the talk,” the teachers told TOI.
NU officials told TOI that the website was managed by Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited (MKCL), which had copy-pasted Pune University’s details on NU website and the top brass had not even bothered to check it.
They alleged that MKCL, which was blacklisted by not only NU but other universities in the past, was allegedly roped in on the VC’s behest without floating any tender. In fact, VC had taken personal guarantee on MKCL’s performance in the Senate meeting last year, when the members opposed awarding exam work to the Pune-based company, they said.