Vice President to attend Utkal University convocation on April 3

BHUBANESWAR: Vice president Venkaiah Naidu is scheduled to attend the convocation ceremony of Utkal University to be held on April 3. After getting confirmation from the VP office, the convocation date was announced by the university on Wednesday evening.

“We received confirmation that the vice president will visit Odisha and attend our convocation ceremony on April 3. We were eagerly waiting for the confirmation from the VP office to finalise the convocation date,” said Utkal University vice-chancellor Sabita Acharya.

She said the vice president’s office had given a tentative date (April 2). The office had again communicated to the university to change the date. “Now the confirmed date has arrived. We had conducted a meeting for the convocation ceremony, but we will again hold another meeting on this celebration within one or day two,” said the vice-chancellor.

Sources said the university had planned to invite the President for the convocation ceremony, but it could not be materialised. Initially, there was a plan to hold the ceremony in March, but the university could not get a confirmed date from its chief guests for this month.

Due to Covid situation, the university could not hold its convocation ceremony last year. It will hold an award giving ceremony on April 1 to award PhD degrees to 127 scholars, DLitt to two scholars, gold medals to 90 students and 20 other awards for the previous year’s convocation.

For this year’s convocation, the university will award PhD degrees to 40 scholars, gold medals to 90 students and other awards including Chancellor’s Cup to 20 students. Discussion on finalisation of Honoris Causa and DLitt awards was underway, said the official sources.

Last convocation of the university was conducted on March 29, 2019. As many as 89 students had received gold medals on the occasion. D Litt degree was awarded to two scholars, while 245 scholars were awarded with PhD degrees.