Professor Lalit Kumar Avasthi takes over as SPU-Mandi Vice-Chancellor, asks staff to ‘give 100%’

MANDI: Professor Lalit Kumar Avasthi on Thursday assumed the office of Vice-Chancellor of Sardar Patel University at Mandi in Himachal Pradesh. Pro-VC Anupama Singh and Controller of Examinations Sunil Verma along with officials, employees and faculty members welcomed Vice-Chancellor upon his arrival at the university campus.

Professor Avasthi held a meeting with the university’s faculty and non-faculty staff to personally introduce himself to all officials, teachers and employees. In his address, the Vice-Chancellor requested all officials, teachers and employees to contribute their hundred per cent for the development of SPU-Mandi and encouraged everyone to move forward with progressive ideas and plans for holistic student development alongside quality education.

Priority would be given to research and development and filing patents, he said.

The Vice-Chancellor said Sardar Patel University would now operate according to national and international standards, focusing on key components such as teaching-learning quality, excellence in infrastructure, research and patent excellence, placement of alumni and improving public perception of the university.

According to Professor Avasthi, soon there would be meetings of the university executive council and finance committee and “we will move forward with planned strategies”.

About the Vice-Chancellor
Professor Awasthi is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, from where he has completed his MTech (1993) and PhD (2003), respectively, besides being first in merit position in BE (Computer Science and Engineering) from Shivaji University.

His academic career spans more than three decades in which he is involved in teaching-learning, laboratory development, infrastructure development, research and administration. He is the main architect of Computer Science and Engineering Department at National Institute of Technology, Hamirpur, where he joined as founder faculty in August 1988. He had established the first computing facility at NIT-Hamirpur.

During his tenure as Head of Department at Computer Science and Engineering, the department could get a new building and all new laboratories were established. He also served as Head of Computer Centre and attributed in establishment of Voice and Data integrated network at NIT-Hamirpur in 2002-03.

Professor Awasthi has more than 160 research publications to his credit in International Journals and Conferences of repute. He has filed four patents and have three designs to his credit. One of the patents filed has been commercialised. His research interests include mobile distributed systems, fault tolerance, sensor networks, P2P networks and network security.