UVCE plans 2 centres of excellence with WB aid

BANGALORE: With Rs 13.5 crore already granted under phase-2 of World Bank-assisted Technical Education Quality Improvement Program (TEQIP), University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE) now plans to start two Centres of excellence with additional grants of Rs 10 crore.“Apart from the general purpose fund of Rs 13.5 crore, there is provision to setup two Centres of Excellence at the cost of Rs 5 crore each. UVCE will soon forward a proposal with the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) to start these centres,” said Dr K R Venugopal, principal of UVCE.One Centre for Excellence in Disaster Management and Mitigation will be proposed in Bangalore University’s Jnana Bharathi campus, with another Centre for Excellence in Emerging Materials and Signal Processing on the existing UVCE campus.“This has been a longstanding plan. We need trained engineers to be well-equipped to handle naturaor artificial disasters. We are only looking at the utility factor. These engineers can go to disaster-prone areas to render their services,” said Dr Venugopal.He added that the signal processing and materials handling were emerging sectors that needed quality skilled personnel.Of the 31 colleges selected in the country under TEQIP II, 14 colleges are from Karnataka with UVCE being the only government college in the list.“Of all the 14 colleges, UVCE is the best in terms of courses, faculty and PhD holders. Research will be the focus in these centres of excellence,” he said.With a total allocation of $500 million for South Asia made by the World Bank, TEQIP II will end on December 31, 2014.