Three big agriculture universities of Gujarat function without regular VCs

GNN | Feb 01, 2020, 4:22 PM IST|

• ‘Farmer-friendly’ Gujarat Govt leaves agriculture varsities in the lurch

GNN News Service
Gandhinagar, Feb 1, 2020. Three big agriculture universities of Gujarat: Anand, Dantiwada and Junagadh are functioning without a regular vice-chancellor. In-charge VCs run these three universities. Also the Dantiwada and the Navsari Agriculture University do not have full-time registrars and function with in-charge registrars.
GNN learns the reason behind this is the government’s failure to initiate a selection process for a new VC in time before the tenure of the sitting VC comes to an end. “But the government hardly bothered to appoint a search committee to find the right candidate before the sitting vice-chancellor retires leaving a huge vacuum,” a senior Gandhinagar source tells GNN.
“Isn’t it ironic and surprising that on the one hand the Gujarat Government swears by the welfare of the farmers and even continuously harps on modern research and development for better yields but runs three key agriculture universities without fulltime vice-chancellors and registrars,” our source questions.
Also these universities are run with just 70% staff than the approved strength. And with no regular heads, the situation seems to be slipping from bad to worse.
Earlier the Governor, on the recommendation of the Gujarat Government, used to constitute search committees to find the right candidate and the process was completed well within time. The name of the new VC would be finalised even before the sitting vice-chancellor’s last day in the office.
The earlier system had a three-member search committee: a vice-chancellor from any of the state based agriculture university, one from academic council and one representative from the Indian Council of Agriculture Research.
But things have changed now, since the Gujarat Government made an amendment in the legislation concerned and now the state has complete control over appointing the search committee for the vice chancellor.
Sources also added that now vice chancellors or the academic council have no say in the search committee since the government directly decides the members on the committee. The only good thing is that the law says the search committee members should be from the agriculture field.
But, problem is that there is delay in constituting the search committee, and even if the committee puts up its report, the government takes its own time in selecting right candidate.
The three in-charge VCs are R K Patel at Dantiwada Agriculture University, VP Chovatia at Junagadh Agriculture University and Dr RV Vyas at Anand Agriculture University. Similarly there are two in-charge registrars: KK Patel at Dantiwada and VA Solanki at the Navsari Agriculture University