Maha guv yet to announce nominee for Mumbai University VC search committee
Mumbai university officials alleged that all important posts at the university are currently being held by ad-hoc members
Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari is yet to announce his nomination for the new Mumbai University vice chancellor search committee causing a delay in the process, said officials familiar with the development.
It has been five months since the varsity’s academic bodies announced their nomination and one month since the state education department declared theirs.
“All important posts at the university are currently being held by ad-hoc members. While the D T Shirke has taken additional charge of MU-VC post, the board of examination is being managed by Shailendra Deolankar. All other academic posts are vacant unless the new VC takes over,” said a senior official from MU on condition of anonymity.
He added that delay in setting-up of the search committee will eventually affect the hiring of the new VC.
Former VC Suhas Pednekar retired from his post on September 10. D T Shirke, vice chancellor of Shivaji University, Kolhapur, has taken additional charge of MU-VC post for the next four months.
As per Maharashtra Public Universities Act 2016, a search committee to appoint a new vice-chancellor for a state university consists of three members. It will be headed by a member nominated by the chancellor, a second nomination comes from the principal secretary of higher and technical education department or any officer not below the rank of principal secretary to the government and the third nominee is usually director or head of an institute or organisation of national repute nominated by the university management and academic councils.
A joint meeting of the academic and management councils of the university in April this year ended with the councils nominating the name of Pramod Kumar Jain, director of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-BHU), Varanasi, as the first name for the said committee.
A spokesperson for Koshiyari’s office told HT that the process to nominate a chairman for this search committee is currently on. “The file is in submission, we should announce a name soon,” said the spokesperson.
After its selection, this committee will invite applications, shortlist candidates, interview them and suggest five names to the chancellor, who will then select one name for the post of VC.
“The entire process of finding a new VC can take five to six months, and the fact that the process of forming the search committee itself is taking so much time, we can only imagine how much time this entire process will take. With this delay, MU might not find a new VC until the start of the next academic year,” said the principal of a city college, requesting not to be named.
