Pune University Proposes Merger Of Departments By August

Pune, 21st June 2021: The Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) will be soon announcing the merger of 44 of its departments into 18 schools, under four different branches. The varsity proposed the first plan of the merger in December 2020, however, due to the ongoing coronavirus situation, the university could not merge all the departments together.

An official source from SPPU on the condition of anonymity told Punekarnews.in, that the merger is expected to occur in August 2021 tentatively. It is worth noting that SPPU is currently hosting entrance examinations of every department individually.

Punekarnews.in got hold of the internal circular published by the SPPU, which explicitly mentions all the departments that are to be merged and renamed.

• The Department of Instrumental Science and Department of Electronic Science will be merged and a new Department of Electronics and Instrumentation Science will be established and will be renamed as School of Electronic and Instrumentation Science.
• Department of Health Sciences will be renamed as School of Health Sciences
• Institute of Bioinformatics and Biotechnology will be merged into Department of Biotechnology and renamed as School of Department of Biotechnology.
• The Department of Political science will be renamed as School of Political Sciences.
• The Department of Instrumentation science and the Department of Electronic Science will be merged and renamed as School of Electronic and Instrumentation science.
• The Department of Communication and Journalism will be merged with the Department of Media and communication studies and will be renamed as School of Communication, Journalism and Media Studies.

Kamalakar Shete, a student activist and the leader of the SPPU Student Union wing said, “The problem lies when two departments with different fields of studies are merged. For instance, the Department of Communication and Journalism which offers a degree in Arts and the Department of Media and communication studies, which offers a degree in Sciences are to be merged into an interdisciplinary study department. The syllabus has to be completely revised, which is again problematic to all the staff and even students.”

He further said, ” If the SPPU management incorporates this decision with immediate effect, this will certainly cause chaos, as the entrance has been taken for individual departments.”

Punekarnews.in tried contacting SPPU registrar Prafulla Pawar for a comment, but he could not be reached. This report will be updated if and when Pawar responds.