HYDERABAD: State-run Universities are back to being headed by bureaucrats. The Telangana government on Wednesday appointed civil servants as in-charge Vice-Chancellors of eight Universities in the State.
The bureaucrats appointed as in-charge VCs are some of the busiest administrators due to their hefty portfolios. Osmania University, the biggest State university that has many academic and affiliated college-related affairs to be taken care on a daily basis will be headed by MAUD Principal Secretary Arvind Kumar.
He will also be heading Mahatma Gandhi University in Nalgonda. Likewise, V Anil Kumar, commissioner of Commercial Taxes, who is also in-charge commissioner of Endowments department and member-secretary of State Pollution Control Board has been appointed as in-charge VC of Potti Sreeramulu Telugu University and Telangana University.
Principal secretary for Agriculture Cooperation department C Parthasarathi, IT secretary J Ranjan, Education secretary B J Reddy and Commissioner of Agriculture Rahul Bojja have been appointed as in-charge VCs of Dr BR Ambedkar Open University, JNTU-Hyderabad, Kakatiya University and Palamuru University respectively.
While the VC posts in seven of these universities fell vacant from Wednesday, positions in Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies ( KGUKT) Basar and Satvahana University, Karimnagar have already been lying vacant for a while now, Mahatma Gandhi University in Nalgonda, fell vacant last month. The vacancy in Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture and Fine will arise in January 2020.
As speculated, barring Prof V P Rao, incumbent VC of Prof Jaishankar Telangana State Agriculture University (PJTSAU), whose term also expired on Wednesday, no other VC has been given extensions. The interim appointments have come on the very day the tenure of these VCs ended. While officials in the education dept claim that the government is keen on finalising the names of new VCs and complete the process by August to avoid any delays, some are criticising the government for handing over the charge to IAS officers.