BHUBANESWAR: Withdrawal of Governor and Chancellor Ganeshi Lal’s directive for regulation of self-financing courses (SFCs) in public universities of the State has come as a huge embarrassment for the government because of its political fallout as well as lack of coordination in the decision-making process.
The fact that the same officer, Saswat Mishra, is Principal Secretary to the Governor and Chancellor and also the Secretary of the Higher Education (HE) department has made the situation all the more curious. Mishra as the Principal Secretary to the Governor issued the directive to the universities to take corrective measures for regulation of SFCs by capping the number of seats at 20 per cent on April 12. Four days later on April 16, the Higher Education department informed all the 13 public universities about the decision of the Chancellor and appointed 13 officials for streamlining SFCs.
But only two days later, the decision was withdrawn by the department. This is a case of Mishra proposing from one seat and then Mishra rejecting it from another seat as the HE department is also directly under him. Though the withdrawal letter was issued by an additional secretary, it could not have been done without Secretary Mishra’s knowledge.
Further questions are also raised as the Governor is the Chancellor of the universities while Higher Education department is only an administrative department relating to finance and other matters of the institutions.
Neither the HE Minister Arun Sahoo nor Mishra were available for comment on this. Sources said that the minister was not consulted when the directive for streamlining of SFCs was issued by the Chancellor’s Principal Secretary. And that was the reason behind the additional secretary of the department signing the letter for withdrawal of the order.
Sources also said that the issue involved business interests cutting across party lines. Several leaders of the ruling BJD, as well as the BJP, have interest in the SFCs run by the universities and do not want capping of the seats. The Minister was not in favour of regulation of the SFCs from the beginning and had to announce its withdrawal due to pressure, they added.