State nominates additional chief sec Anand Limaye to find next VC

Mumbai: Two weeks before the current vice chancellor of the University of Mumbai, Suhas Pednekar, is scheduled to retire, the Maharashtra state higher education department has finally announced their nomination as part of the VC search committee

Mumbai: Two weeks before the current vice chancellor of the University of Mumbai, Suhas Pednekar, is scheduled to retire, the Maharashtra state higher education department has finally announced their nomination as part of the VC search committee. Additional Chief Secretary Anand Limaye will now be part of the three-member VC search committee. Pednekar is set to retire on September 10.

State nominates additional chief sec Anand Limaye to find next VC

“The nomination was suggested and sent to the chief minister’s office for approval more than a month ago, but the approval was pending, which finally came through earlier this week. We have submitted the file to governor, who will now appoint the chairman of this committee,” said a senior official from the department of higher and technical education.

An IAS from the1989 batch, Limaye was previously additional chief secretary, appeals and security.

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 the Governor Bhagat Singh 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.

Meanwhile, MU’s academic and management councils as well as the senate will dissolve with the end of Pednekar’s term, leaving the varsity without official bodies for a few months. “The process of appointing a new VC takes anywhere between three to five months, and the fact that this process has not even started yet means the rest of the academic year we will have to function with the pro-VC taking in-charge post as VC,” said a member of the MU senate.