UPTU seeks students' attendance; meanwhile colleges face closure

In what might appear as an ironic situation, the Uttar Pradesh Technical University (UPTU) has sent out notices to all its technical institutes within the state, to send the attendance details of students; however, at the same time there are about a couple of a dozen colleges under UPTU, which are on the verge of closure due to shortage of candidates.

While on one hand the varsity is taking all steps possible to curb the growing menace of bunking in its institutes, there are over 40,000 seats vacant in various streams of the 598 colleges under UPTU. Even when the new colleges under the varsity are short on infrastructure and staff and have been completely ignored by candidates during the 2009-2010 counselling, those with complete batches running are facing a severe problem of bunking.

Students are falling short of the required annual attendance cut off of 75 percent and the varsity is worried as the situation is growing out of control. As per the university norms, students falling short in their attendance can not sit for the semester exams.

While the details of colleges falling short of students shall reach the varsity by November and the fate of these colleges shall be decided thereafter; the details of students falling short on attendance shall from now onwards be forwarded to the UPTU every month and those whose attendance is not as per rules shall have to stay away from the examination halls.