Cabinet Abolishes Senate In Universities In Odisha

Bhubaneswar: The state Cabinet on Wednesday decided to do away with the Senate in universities and make Syndicate the highest authority.

The Cabinet meeting, chaired by chief minister Naveen Patnaik, took the decision to restructure the Syndicate to have adequate representation of the Chancellor as well as the state government, chief secretary Asit Kumar Tripathy told mediapersons.

Besides, the Cabinet approved the Odisha Universities (Amendment) Ordinance 2020 to amend the Odisha Universities Act 1989 and repeal the Ravenshaw University Act, 2005. Ravenshaw University will now come under the purview of the Odisha Universities Act 1989 but will continue to function as usual.

Similarly, the Cabinet approved to increase the tenure of the Vice-Chancellor of a university to four years in place of present three years and upper age limit for holding the post to 67 years from the present 65 years. No vice-chancellor shall be re-appointed as VC of the same university for the second time.

Following are other important decisions taken at the Cabinet meeting:

• An eminent academician, nominated by the State Government, shall be made a member of the Search Committee in place of the nominee of the Syndicate of the University concerned.
• The concepts of “Registered Teachers’ and ‘Registered Graduates’ have become obsolete, they shall be done away with.
• To avoid collective wastage of time and resources, recruitment of teachers in the universities shall be done centrally by Odisha Public Service Commission
• To avoid collective wastage of time and resources, recruitment of non-teaching employees in the Universities shall be done centrally by State Selection Board.
• The extremely difficult provision of laying voluminous annual audit reports of all Universities in the Odisha Legislative Assembly shall be done away with. Instead, the annual audit reports shall be made available on the University website for at least 3 years for information of all concerned.