Despite the State government extending the status quo of the University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCEs) academic and administrative arrangement with the Bangalore University (BU), the latter has relieved 77 faculty members and 29 technical staff of UVCE from service.
“UVCE teaching and non-teaching staff have decided to continue their service in the same institution after the government rejected their proposal to opt into Bangalore University. Therefore, Bangalore University has relieved them from service,” sources said.
UVCE was a constituent college of Bangalore University since 1964 and it became an autonomous institution on March 25, 2022. Due to financial crunch and other issues, a total of 69 teaching faculty and few technical staff decided to opt into Bangalore University. They also submitted a representation to the government along with the staff list and documents for further action on March 9, 2023.
The staff preferred to opt into BU for their terminal benefits like pension, gratuity, leave encashment, commutation, and National Pension Scheme (NPS) contribution. However, there is was government engineering college in Bangalore University limits to depute them, due to which the government rejected their proposal.
“The government had said they can be transferred and accommodated to other government engineering colleges,” a source said.
The government released ₹35 crore fund to UVCE and extended the status quo of academic and administrative arrangement with the Bangalore University for the next one year in April, after which the teaching and non-teaching staff decided to stay back with UVCE and requested to be relieved from the service.
Jayakara S.M., Vice-Chancellor of Bangalore University, said: “UVCE was a constituent college of Bangalore University and has been working as an autonomous university since March 2022. The government has decided to develop it in the Indian Institute of Technology model and provided an adequate fund for the institution. Therefore, all permanent teaching and non-teaching staff wanted opt to into the same institution and requested to be relieved from our university. After they exit from here, then only will they be eligible to enrol in the Human Resource Management System, and get the salary from the government. So, we relieved them from the service of Bangalore University.”
