Appointment of VCs eludes varsities in Telangana

Hyderabad: All the groundwork is said to have been done. But the process has been going on for the past one year. However, "None of us have any idea when our university will have a regular vice-chancellor," said a senior faculty member of Osmania University.

It is not the lone case, but ten of the State universities have been waiting for regular vice-chancellors for more than a year. Because no appointment of VCs is affecting the appointment of the teaching staff.

Speaking to The Hans India, sources in the State Higher Education Department (SHED) said, "Initially, the appointment of VCs had come to a halt by August 2019, as several universities do not have executive councils." After much efforts the State government had completed constituting the executive council taking one whole year, by the end of September 2020.

State Education Minister Sabitha Indra Reddy had announced in the second week of September this year that the search committees were going to meet on the issue of appointment of vice-chancellors for the 10 State universities.

Governor and Chancellor of the State Universities Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan had further asked the State government for the early completion of the appointment of VCs. Following this, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had also directed the State Higher Education Department officials to take steps to speed up the process.

A SHED official privy to the process pointed out that "All the high in the State government- Governor, Chief Minister, Education Minister have made announcements and assured that the process would be completed soon. Besides, the UGC named its nominees to take part in the process of appointment of VCs." It may be mentioned here that so far the entire process of appointment of VCs and filling faculty vacancies saw the change of two education ministers and three education secretaries.

However, there is no sign or clue as to when the process will be completed and the State universities will get their full-time VCs. Further, officials in the Kakatiya University said that the university had completed all the processes from its end and "All that is needed is a nod from the higher ups from the State government so that the university can issue notification for the filling vacant posts."

But, when pointed out that the State government has already made it clear that it had given clearance for filling up teaching vacancies in the State universities two years ago. Then, why do they need a new clearance, the official was clueless.