Non-NET candidates not eligible for lecturership in HPU, colleges

Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, April 29

The non-NET qualified candidates, who obtained a Ph.D degree before 2009 and are aspiring for appointment as lecturers in the Himachal Pradesh University (HPU) would not be eligible for appointments.

HPU’s Executive Committee (EC) has decided to abide by the Supreme Court decision in this regard.

The Executive Committee, which discussed the issue today, decided that only NET-qualified candidates would be eligible for appointment as college and university lecturers.

The decision would affect recruitments in the university and colleges are already facing acute shortage of teaching staff.

As many as 228 posts of lecturers, including 40 professors and 120 assistant professors are lying vacant in HPU alone.

Similarly, 511 posts are lying vacant in colleges and a requisition was sent to Himachal Public Service Commission for filling 255 posts of college lecturers, but the recruitment process would be stalled following the EC’s decision.

The fee hike issue and discussion on Fee Committee report was deferred as the EC decided to refer the report to the Finance Committee for recommendations. The Fee Committee headed by former Himachal High Court Judge VK Sharma had submitted the report in October 2014 and it was sent to the university but the report has not been discussed so far.

Student organisations, including the SFI and ABVP, have been demanding that the recommendations of the report be made public, but the university neither took any decision on the report nor made it public, adding to the anger of student community, agitating against fee hike for the past eight months. The tardy implementation of Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) in under-graduate courses was raised by the representative of non-teaching employees in EC Devi Ram Sharma and the authorities decided to constitute a high-level committee for the effective implementation of RUSA. The teachers and students were already opposing the hasty implementation of RUSA, but now non-teaching employees are also up in arms against it as it had burdened employees working in the examination wing.

The EC approved the programme for 22nd convocation of the University on June 9, 2015 in which Vice-President of India Hamid Ansari would be the chief guest.