COIMBATORE: Faculty members of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) alleged that the state government is delaying the nomination of members to a search committee to pick the new vice chancellor (V-C), thus violating TNAU (Amendment) Act 2017.
The tenure of TNAU vice chancellor ended on March 28, and the Chancellor R N Ravi made the registrar as in charge of the post till a V-C is appointed. Faculty members fear this could take a long time as the state government is yet to form the V-C search committee.
They say as per section 2-B of TNAU (Amendment) Act 2017 the process of constituting V-C search committee shall begin six months before the probable date of vacancy and completed four months before the date of vacancy.
A professor who did not wish to be named said when a V-C post falls vacant, administrative work gets affected. “After former V-C V Geethalakshmi’s tenure ended, the registrar has to act as V-C and monitor administration, academic, research, etc which would be a huge burden.”
He pointed out that the state government has already constituted a search committee to select V-C for TANUVAS whose tenure ends on April 8. When contacted, Geethalakshmi said that the academic council has nominated a member from the university, and the board of management will soon nominate a member.