VC will talk to DU teachers, assures new HRD minister
Delhi University Teachers Association members met the newly appointed human resource development minister M Pallam Raju and told him about the ongoing tussle between them and the Vice Chancellor.
The minister promised to intervene in the academic changes and open a dialogue and start a process of consultation between DUTA and the VC.
DUTA is on its 43rd day of relay hunger strike with an immediate demand of dialogue with the Vice Chancellor.
Strike still on
“He felt disturbed when we informed that the strike had entered the 43rd day but the VC continues to remain inhumanly indifferent and cold. The minister observed that while reforms are welcome, these must be arrived at by consensus and in consultation with the teachers,” said Amar Deo Sharma, president of DUTA.
The members informed Raju about VC not bringing the guilty to the book in the Cobalt 60 radiator case. Cobalt 60, a highly sensitive radioactive apparatus was sold to a scrap dealer by DU resulting in one death and ailment to various others.
Marks scam
“We brought to his attention the marks scam, when the marks of students in the recent Semester Exams were disproportionately jacked up in the name of moderation,” added Sharma.
The members also told the minister about the VC’s refusal to allow permission of an inquiry into the money given during Commonwealth Games to the university.
A member said the CWG scam involved an embezzlement of around Rs 500 crore accoridng to the Shungulu Committee report.
However the Vice Chancellor and university's executive council refused permission to the Central Bureau of Investigation to prosecute DU’s chief engineer, the member added.
DUTA had taken offence at being called an ‘illegal body’ by the VC recently.
Sharma said, “While everybody, namely, the President of India, Delhi chief minister, the University Grants Commission (UGC) chairman and now the Union HRD minister have no reservation in meeting and having consultations with DUTA, only the VC considers the association an untouchable pariah.”
