Visvesvaraya Technological University V-C lands in controversy again

Bengaluru: The prestigious Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), Belagavi, is once again in the news for the wrong reason. This time it’s over a complaint lodged by the Executive Council with the governor, who is also the chancellor of the university. The complaint is about the visits by the ongoing Local Inquiry Committee to engineering colleges over renewal of the affiliation of the university.

In his letter to the governor, Mr. Karan Kumar H, Executive Council member, has alleged that the university VC and registrar are violating the ‘university act’ and various statutes.
“The issue is the formation of Local Inquiry Committees that are currently visiting colleges under VTU for the Academic Year 2016 - 17, without the approval of the Executive Council of the VTU. In the first instance, the Vice Chancellor has not even called for an ordinary meeting of the Executive Council during the last 5 months, though he was required to call for an ordinary meeting well within 3 months of the previous meeting. Actually,  both Vice Chancellor and Registrar have violated the time frame prescribed under Statute 1 of the Rules of Business of the Executive Council,” he charged.

"It’s unfortunate to note that even the Executive Council members, who  have knowledge of the VTU Act and provisions under various statutes, are also a part of the LICs. Now, having indulged in visits to engineering colleges and showing ignorance over the powers and functions of the Executive Council, many of my esteemed colleagues in the Executive Council of VTU are behaving in a way that is contrary to the interest of VTU Act, 1994 and statutes," he said. Speaking to this newspaper, an officer from the state higher education  department said affiliation of engineering colleges is one of the key areas and functions of VTU. "It is unfortunate that VTU has failed to hold the Executive Council meeting on time and as per the act. All these controversies mar the reputation of the university, besides allowing average colleges to get affiliation easily,"  he concluded.