VCs of West Bengal varsities form council to address issues of common concern

Vice-chancellors of 20 state universities have come together to form a council to coordinate the functioning of higher educational institutions and address issues of common concern. Twenty VCs have signed a letter to propose the formation of the 'West Bengal Vice-Chancellors Council' (Upacharya Parishad), which would review academic infrastructure, admission processes and vacancies, council general secretary Subiresh Bhattacharya said on Tuesday.

Jadavpur University VC Suranjan Das has been chosen as the president of the council, he said. Addressing a press meet, Bhattacharya, the VC of North Bengal University, said, "We will soon sit for talks with state Higher Education Minister Partha Chatterjee to discuss the academic issues faced by the institutions and seek the government's cooperation for the smooth functioning of the forum." Bhattacharya's announcement came a day after the VCs have their visit to Raj Bhavan a miss, citing a new state government rule that does not allow them to attend a meeting, without getting a nod from the higher education department.

Besides Bhattacharya, VCs of five other state universities were present at the press meet. Efforts were being made to get the council registered at the earliest, the North Bengal varsity VC said, while also clarifying that the government was not curbing the autonomy of the universities in any way.

"Universities often face difficulty in getting UGC- allocated funds on time, but the state government has been consistently providing financial aid to higher educational institutions," he claimed. Dhankhar, after being stopped from attending the annual convocation of Jadavpur University last month, had said that "universities are in captivity of the state government".

He had convened a meeting of vice-chancellors on January 13, following the JU incident.

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