UP textile institute to get facelift

The state’s oldest textile technology centre, Uttar Pradesh Textile Technology Institute (UPTTI), is set to get a facelift by renovating its infrastructure and overcoming the ongoing faculty crunch. The management has also proposed to double the present number of seats.

The seventy-year-old dilapidated hostel is proposed to be refurnished, and a hostel accommodating 180 students to be separately constructed to meet the lodging needs of the increased number of students. The decisions were taken in the recent finance committee meeting of the institute.

The institute registrar, Ram Sagar Pandey told Business Standard that Rs 3 crore have been allocated for the renovation purposes. “We are also mulling to set up a separate electricity feeder to ensure constant power supply to the institute and hostels. The hostels will have broadband internet connectivity to facilitate the project works,” he added.

He also added that there was a shortage of trained manpower in the textile designing and production.

“The mill managements are forced to employ incompetent staff due to the dearth. The increase in seats aims to produce trained professionals who can be easily absorbed in the industry,” added Pandey.

The institute presently runs graduate and post graduate engineering courses in Textile technology (40 seats), Textile chemistry (20 seats) and Man-made fibre technology (30 seats) apart from hosting 40 seats at post graduate level. The requisite faculty for almost all the departments is however, lacking.

Seven professors and lecturers are needed in the textile engineering department itself. Even the key administrative posts of vice-chancellor (VC) and financial officer (FO) are being occupied by temporary staff members.

When asked about the measures to tackle the ongoing faculty crunch, Pandey said that presently, guest faculty was being hired to make up for the shortage and new recruitments will soon begin. “We are going to enhance the pay scale for the new professors to make teaching an attractive profession,” he added.

Professor B D Dixit, who has been teaching in the institute for last 15 years, said that the measures were being taken to regain the lost glory of the institute as a world class textile training centre.

“Some of the posts have already been advertised in leading newspapers and the applications are being scrutinised,” added Dixit.