Appointment of VCs to State varsities soon: Education Minister Sabitha Indra Reddy

Hyderabad: Education Minister Sabitha Indra Reddy said that the appointment of Vice-Chancellors to State universities will be taken up soon.

Responding to a question raised by the members of the State Legislative Council on Friday, she said that the process was delayed to due to technical reasons in the appointment of executive councils for the universities. However, the process of forming executive committees has been completed and in turn, they have already constituted search committees that are going to meet soon for the appointment of Vice-Chancellors for all the 10 universities.

Once the process of appointment of VCs is completed, the universities will take up the filling of vacancies of faculty positions. The Minister said that the State government had given its nod for filling of 1,061 faculty positions. However, the University Grants Commission (UGC) had earlier asked to differ the finalisation of the reservation roaster citing the pendency of a court case.

Since the issue has been cleared by the courts, steps have been taken to prepare the reservation roaster as per the Supreme Court verdict and UGC guidelines.

Informing that the State government has enhanced the salaries of contract lecturers as their services cannot be regularised due to legal issues, Sabita Reddy said that the State government was releasing its share of 40 per cent under Rashtriya Uchchattar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) to the State universities.

"The State government will also look into the issue of infrastructure shortage," she added. Earlier, BJP MLC N Ramchander Rao, A Narsi Reddy, Palla Prabhakar Reddy and others raised the issues regarding shortage of staff, funds besides delayed salaries to the staff of Palamuru University.