TIRUNELVELI: The 30th convocation ceremony of the Manonmaniam Sundaranar University (MSU), which is to be presided over by Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi, will be held on February 3, said Vice-Chancellor N Chandrasekar on Wednesday.
Addressing media persons here, the V-C said that the event will also be attended by RS Rajakannappan, Higher Education Minister and Nalinaksh A Vyas, former Vice Chancellor of Rajasthan Technical University, among others. "As many as 40,622 students will be conferred degrees during the ceremony. The governor will confer degrees on 459 students including 108 gold medallists and 351 PhD holders," he added.
Talking about PhD degrees, Chandrasekar said that his administration will implement the new guidelines issued by the University Grants Commission from this academic year onwards.
"Reservation will be strictly implemented in case of admission to PhD courses. College principals will head all specialisations of the PhD courses, and the guides who violate rules will face disciplinary action," he said.
He further said that the university is in a deep financial crisis and added, "We need Rs 2.5 crore monthly to provide employee salaries, but we are short of money. Since 2016, we have not received the Rs 60-crore fund, which we used to receive annually from the state government. The grants from the Commission were also stopped six years ago. We are now forced to spend EPF money for varsity expenses," he rued.