COIMBATORE: Retired IAS officer P N Veda Narayanan, who has held the offices of Vigilance Commissioner and Development Commissioner, is heading the search committee for the new Vice Chancellor of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU).
The other two members are TNAU Management Board nominee Srinivasan Sithanantham and TNAU Academic Council nominee S Ayyappan.
While Sithanantham is Director Entomology, Sun Agro Biotech Research Centre, Chennai, Ayyappan is Secretary, Central Department of Agricultural Research and Education and Director General of Indian Council for Agricultural Research.
The committee, which will recommend three names to the Chancellor for the post, was constituted by recent order of Agricultural Production Commissioner Rajesh Lakhoni.
With the formation of the committee, the process of selecting the new Vice Chancellor is in full swing.
Aspirants are many and as before, the race is tough this time too, university sources said. Among the prominent names being mentioned are are former TNAU Registrar P Subbian, former Director of Research B Chandrasekaran and former Director of Extension Education E Vadivel. C Chinnasamy, former Dean of the Agricultural College and Research Institute, Madurai and M Jawaharlal, Dean of Horticultural College and Research Institute for Women, Trichy are also being mentioned.
"We cannot rule out surprises like former VC K Ramasamy being given second term. He has earned a name for himself in the academic community by his performance," sources said.
According to TNAU Act, a Vice Chancellor is eligible for reappointment for one successive term. The tenure, now three years, was five years when the TNAU was established, but later reduced to accord with that of other universities.
As the incumbent cannot hold the office beyond 70 years of age, Ramasamy, if reappointed, will have a tenure of only two and a half years. He will be 70 in May 2018. But this may be overlooked if the selection committee is impressed with his credentials, the sources said.