President appoints vice chancellors  at 12 central universities

President of India in his capacity as the visitor to central universities has appointed vice-chancellors at 12 such universities in the country. As many as 22 central universities have been functioning without a full-time vice-chancellor, including the University of Delhi (DU), Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

Education minister Dharmendra Pradhan yesterday informed the Rajya Sabha that the President has finalised the names to be appointed as the Vice Chancellors in 12 central universities.

As per a notification issued by the education ministry, the visitor has appointed vice-chancellors at 12 universities, which are Central University of Haryana (CUH), Central University of Himachal Pradesh (CUHP), Central University of Jammu (CU Jammu), Central University of Jharkhand (CUJ), Central University of Karnataka (CUK), Central University of Tamil Nadu (CUTN), Central University of Hyderabad (CUH), Central University of South Bihar (CUSB), North Eastern Hill University (NEHU), Guru Ghasidas Vishwavidyalaya, Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU)and Manipur University
Tankeshwar Kumar will take over as the vice-chancellor of CUH which was headed by RC Kuhad till now. Sat Prakash Bansal will take over as VC of CUHP, while Sanjeev Jain will head CU Jammu and Kshiti Bhusan Das who was serving as the Pro-VC or Central University of Odisha will head CUJ.

Battu Satyanarayana will join as the VC of CUK; Muthukalingan Krishnan who has been serving as the VC of Madurai Kamaraj University will join CUTN. Basuthkar J Rao who has been serving as the senior professor, chair of Biology and dean faculty at IISER, Tirupati, will now head the Central University of Hyderabad.

Kameshwar Nath Singh, Prabha Shankar Shukla, Alok Kumar Chakrawal, Syed Ainul Hasan and N. Lokender Singh will join as VCs of CUSB, NEHU, Guru Ghasidas Vishwavidyalaya, MANUU and Manipur University, respectively.

While speaking in the Rajya Sabha on the issue, Pradhan said that the process of appointment of vice-chancellors in central universities is a time-consuming exercise which involves getting the Executive Council and court's nomination of the central university concerned, the constitution of search-cum-selection committee, advertisement of posts, scrutiny of applications, interaction with shortlisted candidates, getting vigilance clearances, approval of the competent authority, among others, hence, no time-frame can be indicated.

The central universities which have been running without a full-time VCs were DU, BHU, JNU, NEHU, Assam University, Guru Ghasidas University, Sagar University, Manipur University, two Sanskrit universities in Delhi, two central universities in Bihar and central universities located in Jammu and Kashmir, one each in Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Nagaland, Jharkhand, Telangana, Tamil Nadu.

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