more-in More than one-and-a-half years after the visit of an expert committee to the University College of Engineering in Kothagudem to study the feasibility of upgrading the institution into a university, ambiguity persists over the ambitious proposal to strengthen the nearly four decade-old institution in the coal mining hub. There has been a long-pending demand from the student and youth organisations in the coal belt region for transforming the University College of Engineering (Kakatiya University) located on sprawling little over 390 acres in Kothagudem into a mining university. Thanks to the initiative of Kothagudem MLA Jalagam Venkat Rao, a seven-member expert panel consisting of several academicians and representatives of the Telangana State Council of Higher Education (TSCHE) made an on-the-spot assessment of the facilities at the University College of Engineering in September 2016. The college, which was originally started as Kothagudem School of Mines under the Osmania University in 1978, produced several distinguished personalities mainly mining engineers. The institution was brought under the jurisdiction of the Kakatiya University in 1995. However, it continued to grapple with a multitude of deficiencies particularly the shortage of regular faculty and poor infrastructure facilities. The mining engineering department has only one regular faculty and the remaining engineering departments are reportedly facing dearth of regular lecturers, sources said. The existing strength of the regular faculty members is bound to decrease further with two regular lecturers are slated to retire from service in the next few months, sources said. The expert team’s visit to the college in 2016 rekindled hopes of the institution getting the much-awaited university tag, but nothing concrete has emerged so far, deplored SFI district president M. Sateesh. It is high time the persons at the helm fulfill their promise of setting up a mining university in the coal mining hub of Kothagudem, he said, alleging that the inmates of the hostel attached to the University College of Engineering were facing severe inconvenience due to lack of facilities. The govt. should grant university status to the college, upgrade the infrastructure facilities, fill up all vacant faculty positions and introduce more courses including M.Tech (mining engineering), he suggested.

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