HYDERABAD: President Pranab Mukherjee at the start of his speech at Osmania University on Wednesday, greeted the Executive Council (EC) of Osmania University besides making a mention of the dignitaries on the dais.
Ironically, OU has been functioning without an EC for many years and as a result there wasn’t an EC present on the stage.
Present state
However, the university as of now has a namesake EC which consists of only five government and university officers - OU Vice Chancellor (VC), Registrar, Special Chief Secretaries of higher education and finance and Commissioner of Collegiate Education.
President of the OU Teachers Association, Prof Battu Satyanarayana, said, “The Universities Act mandates that the EC should meet at least once in six weeks and that there should be at least one-third members present for the meeting, which is not even the strength of the so-called present Executive Council of the university. ”
He added,“One way, the university is getting affected due to lack of an EC is that research grants given by central government are being returned back unused. Till now more than Rs 3 crores of grants have been wasted.”
What comprises the council?
As per the Universities Act, there should be 19 individuals under three classes in the Executive Council.
Class-I consists of five ex-officio members, VC, Rector, Education department secretary, Finance department secretary and director of higher education. In Class-II, there should be one Professor from university colleges, one dean or principal from university colleges, one principal and four eminent persons from various fields. In Class-III, there should be four teachers, one Principal and two members of the Academic Senate.