IndiGlobal Media Bureau
The new Director of the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Rourkela assumed office on Saturday, February 19, 2022. Professor Karanam Umamheshwar Rao is now the new Director of NIT Rourkela. He will be succeeding Prof Simanchalo Panigrahi, who was appointed as the interim director in October 2021.
Prof. K. Umamaheshwar Rao was previously serving as the Director of the National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK), also known as NIT Surathkal. Before joining here, he was a faculty for almost three decades at IIT Kharagpur. Some of his important portfolios include Chairman (Estate), and Vice Chairman of Joint Entrance Examination (JEE). He was also the Head of the Mining Engineering Department during 2006-08 and 2010-14.
Prof. K. Umamaheshwar Rao’s field of specialization is experimental rock mechanics and he has been working in this area since 1989. He has guided six Ph.D. candidates with another 12 research scholars in the advanced stage of research under his supervision for their doctoral degrees.
He has to his credit published as many as 30 research papers in international journals and presented an equal number of papers in international seminars and conferences. The milestone in his research is the publication of the book on the Principles of Rock Drilling, published by A.A.Balkema, Rotterdam, the Netherlands in 1999. Later this book was also published by India Book House, New Delhi. This book had given Prof. Rao international acclaim in the field of Mining Engineering.
Highlighting his priorities for the Institute, Prof. K. Umamaheshwar Rao, Director, NIT Rourkela, said, “NIT Rourkela is a pride entity of Orissa. The Institute’s rank in the NIRF Ranking matters today. Time has come to redefine our objectives and work towards them with determination, required skills, and strategies having foresight vision for the exponential growth of the Institute. Our accomplishment towards the goal starts now.”
Further, Prof. K. Umamaheshwar Rao said, “The expectations of the industry from the students are to have the21st century skills and sufficient knowledge in the niche areas like Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big data analysis, 3D printing and additive technology in manufacturing. These expectations have to be taken care of with a lot of involvement from the Institute. It is the time for the creation of a Career Development Centre instead of a Training and Placement Cell, whose objective is to create opportunities for students to upgrade their career skills, soft skills and technical skills.”
According to various national and international ranking agencies, NIT Rourkela is the top NIT of the country when it comes to research profile. Prof. K. Umamaheshwar Rao also aims to bring NIT Rourkela in the top 10 in the NIRF rankings by focusing on different parameters such as number and quality of publications, financial resources and utilization such as creating facilities for students, which include laboratories, libraries, etc., and faculty-student ratio.
The newly appointed Director aims to improve research and innovation infrastructure with the help of faculty and students to make NIT Rourkela a campus of first choice. He would also work towards increasing multidisciplinary quotients in curriculum with special emphasis given to environmental and value-based education.
Congratulating his successor, Prof. Simanchalo Panigrahi, the outgoing Interim Director of NIT Rourkela, said, “NIT Rourkela is founded in the rich land of Ratnabhava (land rich in resources). Our state shares a major part of the country’s mineral reserves. Mining being the primary profession here, the new Director is not only an asset to the Institute but also to the state.”
In previous year, NIT Rourkela has added four new Centre of research which includes Centre for Poverty Alleviation and Research, Centre for Excellence on Public Health Nutrition, Centre for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (CBCB) and Space Technology Incubation Centre and now the Institute will soon have a Centre for IoT and Embedded Technologies (CIET).
