Yet another instance of neglect to Mayurbhanj district has come to light. The Orissa High Court, after being approached, however, has intervened and directed the State Higher Education Department to settle the matter within a month.
The fact is like this. The Post Graduation Department in English had been functioning in the main campus of the Sriram Chandra Bhanj Vishwavidyalaya (earlier known as North Orissa University) here at Baripada as a self-financing course since 2012. But amid growing public demand to convert the self-financing department to a regular one, the Government of Odisha, in the year 2017, had sanctioned one Assistant Professor and one Associate Professor to the university but later had diverted the two posts to the second campus of the university at Keonjhar, where there was no English Department at all then.
The strange administrative decision had stoked vehement opposition among the public in Mayurbhanj district. Consequently, the State Government the next near sanctioned one Professor, one Associate Professor and two Assistant Professors (all permanent posts) for the department in the main campus of the university here (letter no. 17286, d.11-06-2018, D.H.E.). But, again, strangely and ironically, when the Registrar issued the notification to this effect on 04-01-2020, it was found that all these four newly-sanctioned permanent Professor posts had been given away to the university's second campus at Keonjhar, instead of its main campus at Baripada.
The unbelievable and unbecoming development added to the woes of the university's English PG students here, who, even to this day, continue to be deprived of pursuing MPhil and PhD courses. Though the students here presently have to pay an exorbitant admission fee, they are forced to be deprived of all UGC-sponsored seminars, projects, refresher courses, orientation programmes etc, much to the dismay and disappointment of the Baripada student community.
Against the administrative injustice, educationalist and social activist Swaroop Patnaik had knocked at the door of the High Court. The court, having considered all aspects of the issue, has now directed the Department of Higher Education to end all confusion in this regard and settle the matter within a month. This has, of late, brought some relief to the students and teaching community in the district.