New vice chancellors of State universities soon: Minister

Search committees have been constituted, Education Minister tells House

Education Minister P. Sabita Indra Reddy has announced that the process for appointment of vice-chancellors to different universities in the State has been initiated and it will be completed soon.

Search committees had been constituted to identify suitable candidates and modalities related to recruitment of other vacancies in the universities will also be released soon. The appointment of vice chancellors and recruitment to other posts were delayed because of the legal issues and the committee constituted by the government had resolved a majority of these issues, she said.

The Minister was responding to queries by the Opposition during the passage of the Telangana State Private Universities (Establishment and Regulation) (Amendment) Act, 2018 in the Legislative Assembly on Monday. The Bill was introduced after the government had permitted five private universities — Mahindra University, Woxsen University, Malla Reddy University, S.R. University and Anurag University — in the State.

She said the sponsoring bodies of these universities complied with the conditions of letter of intent and the expert committee constituted to examine them also submitted its recommendations. Congress member D. Sridhar Babu said the government should work for strengthening the government-run universities by filling the vacant posts of vice-chancellors and other senior faculty before giving permissions to the private varsities.

High fees

He expressed concern that poor would not be in a position to access education in the private universities owing to their fee structure. There was need for the government to consider fee reimbursement for such students, he said expressing concern that the government was yet to fill posts of vice chancellors in several universities and bureaucrats had been appointed as persons in-charge for the posts.

The Minister, however, said permission to private universities was necessitated after steep rise in the number of aspirants for higher and research-oriented education and the government had constituted committees to examine all issues relating to the applications submitted. The government received 16 applications of which, nine qualified after meeting the requirements. Of these, eight had come forward for setting up universities and three proposals were still under consideration.

She said the government’s representative would be there in the governing councils of these private universities to oversee the courses and fee structure. These universities should obtain accreditation of NAAC and other bodies while 25 % quota to Telangana youth in the admissions was mandatory. “No relaxations have been given to these universities,” she asserted.

Rule of reservation

Replying to queries, she said rule of reservation for older students would continue in the brownfield universities, institutions that were functioning in the past and upgraded as universities, while the decision on implementing the rule of reservation in the greenfield universities, the newly developed ones, was left to the managements concerned.

The Legislative Assembly also passed the Telangana Public Employment (Regulation of Age of Superannuation) Act, Telangana Disaster and Public Health Emergency (Special Provisions) Act, Telangana Goods and Services Tax (second amendment) Act, Telangana Court Fees and Suits Valuation (Amendment) Act and Telangana Civil Courts (Amendment) Act.