PU set to increase seats in 5-yr law, LLM courses

Bhartesh Singh Thakur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 2

Panjab University is set to increase seats in five-year law, LLM and Master of Engineering courses (ME) for 2019-20. Also, two new courses, MBA (HR) and MBA (finance, security and investment), have been given a go ahead.

A PU panel under Prof AK Bhandari has been formed to finalise self-financing courses to be started from 2019-20 while looking at their viability, earnings and investment on faculty and infrastructure.

In its last meeting on December 27, the committee allowed 60 seats each in BA-LLB and BCom-LLB, which are also known as five-year law degrees, at the University Institute of Legal Studies (UILS).

The UILS already has 120 seats each in BA-LLB and BCom-LLB. “We have also written to the Bar Council of India (BCI) for increasing seats as their nod is important. They will finalise our proposal at a meeting in February this year,” Prof Rattan Singh, Director, UILS, said.

“Four rooms from the University Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (UIPS) have been handed over to the UILS for starting the classes. The extension of the UILS building has also been under consideration at around Rs 3.36 crore,” he said.

The fee of BA-LLB and BCom-LLB is around Rs 90,000 per year.

“There is a huge demand for BA-LLB and BCom-LLB. We usually get around 2,200 to 2,300 applications each year,” Prof Rattan said.

The UILS has also been increasing 20 seats each in one-year LLM, which runs in the morning, and two-year LLM, which runs in the evening. At present, each course has 40 seats each. The fee is around Rs 1.22 lakh per year in LLM.

UIET

The University Institute of Engineering and Technology (UIET) is starting two new Master in Engineering (ME) courses, one in Cyber Security and another in Information Technology (IT). The ME in IT will run as part time for people from industry. There will be 20 seats each in two courses and fee will be around Rs 50,000 per annum.

The postgraduate courses in engineering are already being run in mechanical, biotechnology; material science; information technology; computer science; electrical engineering and electronics and communication.

The PU panel has also approved two Master of Business Administration (MBA) courses at the University School of Open Learning (USOL). It has plans to run MBA (Human Resource) and MBA (Finance, Security and Investment Banking). There will be 200 seats in each course.

As of now, the USOL is running MBA General. “But in the new courses, we have included workshops, seminars, case studies, presentations and viva too. Earlier, only Personal Contact Programme (PCP) used to happen,” Prof Geeta Bansal, USOL, said. She said the total fee of the courses would be Rs 80,000 each.

New courses

• Master of Engineering (ME) (Cyber Security), ME (Information Technology), MBA (Human Resource) and MBA (Finance, Security and Investment Banking).     
• Seats to be increased for BA-LLB, BCom-LLB, one-year LLM, two-year LLM. A number of courses are marked to a three-member sub committee to give their inputs on their viability in the long run. The self-financing courses are meant to sustain themselves in terms of expenditure of infrastructure and salaries of staff employed to teach them.