By Rajiv Shukla
LUCKNOW : On March 21 the UP assembly passed the UP Technical University (Amendment) Bill 2013 merging Mahamaya Technical University Gautambudha Nagar with UP Technical University.

The Bill will come into effect the day it is notified in the official gazette.

UP Technical University was split into two universities with their respective territorial jurisdiction, roughly dividing the state into western and eastern territories with most tech education colleges going to Mahamaya university. With the end of Mayawati raj in UP the Mahamaya University heydays came to an end.

The passage of the UPTU amendment bill is being considered as a personal victory of UP Technical University Registrar
Mr U S Tomer who lobbied hard for the proposed bill. The Bill may get the approval of the upper house in a couple of months and is expected to be notified in the first week of July.

Introducing the bill in the Lower house Parliamentary Affairs minister Azam Khan said that the splitting of the UPTU into two universities in 2010 was giving trouble to academic administrators of the two universities and had led to wide qualitative gap in their academic and examining standards forcing the UP government to unify the two universities.

The unified university, according to the bill, will be named UP Technical University, and would be based in Lucknow.

UP Technical University was established by an Act of UP assembly in 2000, notified on May 8, 2000 with Dr Durg Singh Chauhan as its first vice-chancellor. It was established as an affiliating university but it later inducted Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET), Lucknow and HBTI, Kanpur as constituent colleges.

The teachers of IET, Lucknow by virtue of its close proximity have been grabbing all the key administrative posts of the UPTU leaving crumbs to Harcourt Butler Technological Institute (HBTI) faculty who often sulk in envy and at time in disdain.