Top University in Punjab

The Central University of Punjab, Bathinda (CUPB) was established in 2009 along with 12 other Central Universities by an Act of Parliament (No 25, of 2009). The university has a mission of providing wide range of instructional and research facilities across integrated and cross-disciplines, promote innovation in teaching, learning and research, and cross-pollinate new ideas, new technologies and new world-views. It aims to create an ignited workforce responsive to regional, national and global needs in tune with the requirements of academia, industry and business. The university started in a three-room Camp Office provided by the state administration in March 2009. Making a modest but speedy start, the university accepted on rent, a dilapidated campus of 37 acres of an abandoned co-operative spinning mill on Mansa Road, Bathinda. It had a tin-roofed factory-hall and a small administrative building. These structures were renovated and made operational. It is from this campus that CUPB has been working and progressing. The university has established a Central Instrumentation Laboratory, Computer Centre and the University Library to provide high end facilities to its faculty and students. Airconditioned lecture rooms, well-equipped science laboratories, a 90-seater seminar hall and a 250-seater air-conditioned auditorium support the academic activities. Simultaneously, the arduous task of selecting enough contiguous land for its campus was undertaken. The Punjab State Government purchased 500 acre of land in Ghudda village and got it registered as a site for the new university campus. Adopting prescribed procedures, a 9 km wall was constructed followed by tendering for hiring the services of architect, Project Management Institutions and the contractors. Mandatory approvals of master plan, building plans, associated environmental clearances and also approval from departments of forests, roads, airport authorities and several others have been obtained and the First Phase of the building is under construction. The Foundation Stone of the campus was laid by the Hon?ble Union Minister of Human Resource Development, Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani and the Hon?ble Chief Minister of Punjab, Sardar Parkash Singh Badal on 7th September, 2015. The new campus is scheduled to be completed and become operational within a period of 18 months. The campus is designed to be environment friendly and energy efficient conforming to GRIHA-I norms, perhaps the first such instance in the area. Over 20,000 (mostly indigenous) trees of 85 species were planted by the CUPB students, faculty and staff this monsoon. The UGC authorized every new Central University to run 20 centres of its choice depending on the need of the area. Each centre was allowed positions of 1 Professor, 2 Associate Professors and 4 Assistant Professors. Currently, CUPB has 19 centres spread over 9 schools in areas ranging from Sciences, Technology, Humanities, Laws and Social Sciences. We have adopted national model curricula wherever available and supplemented it with the local, national and global issues. CUPB offers only Masters, M.Phil. and Ph.D. programmes. It started with the first batch of 10 students in 4 programmes in August 2009 and now has 904 students in 71 academic programmes. It is a validation of university?s growing credibility among the students that during the year 2015-16, a total of 6747 candidates opted for CUPB in CUCET or applied directly. Out of these, 513 students were offered admission making the average demand ratio of 1:13. For Ph.D. programmes there were 442 applicants for 19 fellowships making the demand ratio of 1:23. Besides celebrating international and national commemorative days, students are encouraged to organize annual sports and cultural events during the Foundation Week in February every year. Every Saturday, the Visual Arts Club organizes a movie show screening documentaries and films on arts, social issues, environment, sports and research followed by group discussion.

CUPB is committed to the social cause of not only the region, but the whole nation and actively participates in events like “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan”. To cater to the financial need of students, the university provides scholarships and interest-free loans out of the Students Welfare Fund and has also implemented Earn-While-You-Learn scheme. In spite of the locational disadvantage, CUPB in true sense is a multi-cultural miniIndia as it supports students from 25 states, faculty from 14 states and non-teaching staff from 9 states. The university takes pride in its exceptionally qualified and committed faculty of 84 teachers. All Assistant Professors (except two in Computer Science and Technology) have a doctoral degree and are NET qualified. It is remarkable that 38 members of the present faculty have made a total of 105 visits abroad for training/research/conferences etc. Twenty faculty members have been abroad for more than one year, while nine have spent between 5 to 17 years at prestigious foreign universities. The faculty has 84 research projects worth Rs.1376.19 lacs, perhaps the highest per capita funding in any university in India. In March 2015, the university completed six years of its inception and became eligible to apply for NAAC accreditation. This comprehensive report is an outcome of the untiring efforts of the Internal Quality Assurance Cell that has put together several drafts of the report after intensive research and data collection with multiple sets of revisions and additions along the way. Different centres have also played a role in the preparation of centre-wise evaluative reports. I express my deep sense of gratitude to all the contributors for extending whole hearted support in bringing out this report. On various research parameters, CUPB ranks at number 1 among the 13 central universities established in 2009. With a much focussed approach, the university is undoubtedly poised to write a new chapter on the academic horizon of India.