JOIN USGraft only tip of iceberg
Former Vice-Chancellor Dr M S Thimmappa said, "We realised that there is no logic in the current system. Under the current system, the chairman who recommends additional courses or affiliation is also part of the committee that approves. So when I was the Vice- Chancellor, the Syndicate, which is the highest approving authority within the University unanimously agreed to a few amendments to the Karnataka State Universities Act."
One of the amendments was that the chairperson of the Local Inquiry Committee had to be an academician. Principals, senior professors and deans of institutions were given the responsibility to inspect and recommend institutions to the Syndicate. The chairperson of the LIC was also not part of the Syndicate. The Syndicate itself was exclusively made up of educationists. Thimmappa added, “With the chairperson of the LIC belonging to the Syndicate, committee members seldom reported malpractices and complaints never used to reach the Syndicate. During my tenure I rejected several nominations to the Syndicate made by the different governments on the premise that they were not educationists.”
Incidentally some of Thimmappa’s rejects are an integral part of the current Syndicate.
However, the amendments were revoked a month after Thimmappa finished his tenure. A principal of an eminent city college and a former chairman of Local Inquiry Committee said that it is a decades-old problem.
"It has been brought to the forefront by the Lokayukta. Not all LICs are corrupt. I was part of an LIC, which was objective in its decision making. It is this system where Syndicate members are nominated which is at fault," he said.
He added that most of them have no academic credentials and often behave like spokespersons of political parties.
A principal of a city government college said that it is the unaided colleges that bear the brunt of the worst of LIC members and chairpersons. “Most of the corruption lies where there is big money. And everybody wants these big unaided colleges in the city within their LIC,” he said.
He also blamed these colleges, a number of them with huge reputations.
“The big colleges are to be blamed as well. They have so many skeletons in their closet that they have to use devious means to get the approvals and permission,” he added.
DH News Service