NEW DELHI: Yogesh Singh, former Vice-Chancellor of Delhi Technological University and a national executive member of the RSS offshoot and teacher’s body Bhartiya Shikshan Mandal was on Wednesday appointed as the new VC of the University of Delhi.
President Ramnath Kovind, on the recommendation of the Union education ministry, also appointed Neelima Gupta as the VC of Dr. Hari Singh Gour Vishwavidyalaya, Sagar in Madhya Pradesh.
Last October the Centre had suspended the then DU VC Yogesh Tyagi and had ordered immediate inquiry against him, after which the university had been running under an ad-hoc VC.
The charges against Tyagi had included grave misconduct, abuse of power, lack of commitment, administrative lapses and dereliction of duty.
The fresh appointments come close on the heels of the government appointing full-time VCs in 12 other central universities in late July.
Out of a total of 45 central universities, 22—across several states including JNU and Delhi University—had been running without full-time VC for a long time with major disruptions in academic and administrative activities.
Apart from running headless, the teaching-learning process in central universities has also been marred due to acute shortage of teachers.
The government, recently in the Parliament, had conceded that at least 14 central universities have over 40 % of their sanctioned teaching positions lying vacant with two of them having over 70 % vacancy.
Sharing data on the vacancies in the universities, Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan had informed the Upper House that as on April 1, overall, 33.4 % of teaching positions and 37.7 % non-teaching sanctioned positions in central universities were lying vacant.
Last month, it had asked all the central universities to fill up teaching and non-teaching vacancies on top priority.