Chennai: Thousands of passed out engineering graduates belonging to last year's May batch of Anna University in Chennai are left stranded for an annual convocation ceremony, leaving them anxious and worried.

Normally, the university conducts the ceremony latest by November every year but this time, it is the end of January and the 2008-09 batch students have no intimation about the same.

Inquiring the matter with the senior University professors revealed that the delay was due to no intimation given to the governor chancellor about the mandatory date for conducting the convocation.

"The date of the convocation can be finalized only with the consent of the Vice Chancellor of the university. According to the rules, it is only then that the university can go ahead with the printing of 70,000-odd graduation certificates, which have then to be manually signed," said the official.

However, the university Vice Chancellor, P. Mannar Jawahar said the office of the governor-chancellor was expected to give a date in February.