The Syndicate of the University of Madras on Friday has put in place a four-member convenor committee to oversee the functioning of the university until the next Vice-Chancellor is appointed.
Higher Education Secretary Apoorva is the chairman of the committee. Commissioner of Technical Education K. Vivekanandan, MOP Vaishnav College principal Lalitha Balakrishnan and university’s Department of Indian History HoD S.S. Sundaram are the other members.
The university V-C P. Duraisamy’s tenure ends on Tuesday following which the committee will take over.
The Syndicate has approved grant of affiliation to new courses and additional sections. This will not apply to new colleges for which inspection has to be conducted, Mr. Duraisamy said.
He said the Syndicate took up the matter so that the students did not lose out. The arts and science colleges could admit 3,000 additional students. The Syndicate has taken an undertaking from the colleges that provisional affiliation was being given subject to the condition that the colleges fulfill all the requirements.
The university had called for 30 posts of faculty but due to court cases, appointments had not been made. The Syndicate members raised the issue of whether the appointments would be made in the light of the new order on recruitment issued by the government.
Mr. Duraisamy said these were existing posts for which advertisements had already been placed. Only new posts for any proposed new departments would not be possible.
The Syndicate did not take up the university’s budget for discussion. A member said in view of the COVID-19 restrictions the discussion on budget was not taken up.
Mr. Duraisamy said the budget would be presented to the Senate whenever it meets. “Once the lockdown is lifted, the members are expected to meet. The meeting was to be held in March-end and has only been postponed,” he said.
