TS govt mulls removing Governor as Chancellor

Hyderabad: With the rift between the TRS government and Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan widening day by day, the state government is contemplating to follow the Kerala experiment in this regard. The KCR government is contemplating to remove the Governor as the Chancellor of state universities.

The government feels miffed as the Governor had not yet accorded her approval to the bills that were passed by the Assembly during the last session. The bills include the setting up a common recruitment board for the faculty of universities.

The ensuing Assembly session, it is learnt, will take up the issue of the bills pending approval with the Governor. There are eight bills pending with the Governor. Six of them relate to the amendments to existing Acts.

Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had recently expressed his displeasure that though Education Minister Sabitha Indra Reddy met the Governor and gave clarifications sought by her, she had not yet cleared the common recruitment board bill. She had expressed her feeling that a separate board would be in violation of the UGC rules and guidelines.

The government did not take up recruitment in any universities since 2014 due to the glitches in the existing recruitment process. The government introduced a new system to accord merit a top priority in the recruitment.

Sources said the Chief Minister had enquired about the recent ordinance promulgated by the Kerala government which removed the Governor as the Chancellor of the universities and replaced him with an eminent academician as the head of the universities. The CM asked the officials to find the ways to free the universities from the Governor's control so that the higher educational institutions can be made as centre of excellence without any political involvement.

Sources said that along with the issue of pending bills with the Governor, a discussion on the constitutional provisions available for the government in case the Governor did not take a decision on the pending bills by December first week will also be discussed.