After remaining in a state of limbo for a year, which made the administration veer off the track, Sri Venkateswara University is in the reckoning again, with the appointment of the new Vice-Chancellor Wudayagiri Rajendra.
Hand-picked by Chief Minister N.Kiran Kumar Reddy for heading the varsity in his native district, Dr.Rajendra is getting down to administration. The molecular biology expert has been known as a serious academic with research publications and projects in his kitty from UGC, CSIR, ICMR, DST of India, Rockefeller Foundation and Du Pont (both USA), Natural Sciences and Engineering Council (Canada) and National Medical Research Council of Singapore.
His executive experience is as the Dean (College Development Council), when he launched a Bioinformatics Facilitation Centre and the M.S.c. Animal Biotechnology course.
The new Rector M.A.K.Sukumar (professor of English) and Registrar K.Satyavelu Reddy (Zoology) are crucial in making Dr.Rajendra’s stint as ‘less turbulent’ as possible, especially when expenses are increasing and revenue plummeting.
The arbitrary decision of “one-university-per-district” forced SVU to give away the affiliated colleges in Kadapa and Nellore on a platter to Yogi Vemana and Vikrama Simhapuri varsities respectively, though most employees stayed back with the parent.
On the expenditure front, the huge number of NMRs and time-scale workers appointed during the previous regimes is set to cause a crunch.
In his new role, Dr.Rajendra accords priority to employee welfare, as evident from the resolutions adopted at the recent executive meeting in Hyderabad. By implementing G.O.54 that deprived the pensioners retired during 1.1.1996 to 31.12.2005 of their due, the varsity embarked on a damage control exercise.
Similarly, the G.O.148 makes the last month’s pay as the base for calculation of pension benefits, and not the average of last ten months’ emoluments. “With this, we seek to correct the anomalies”, says Dr.Rajendra, who has also signalled the Career Advancement Scheme (CAS) and clearance of backlog SC/ST vacancies.
The trio is already in the groove. Dr.Sukumar has announced to get the results released at the earliest and hold the Research Committee Meet soon to revise the research regulations.
Similarly, Dr.Reddy banks on the block grant hike from Rs.46 crore to Rs.76 crore to salvage the bleak financial scenario.
