Pantnagar University has yet again been declared as best university of Uttarakhand. Governor of Uttarakhand, Dr. K.K. Paul, announced the prize in a meeting of vice-chancellors of all universities of Uttarakhand held today at Rajbhwan. Uttarakhand Governor Dr KK Paul honoured four vice chancellors of State universities for their efforts to enhance the level of education in the year 2016.
The Governor had instituted this award to motivate universities to enhance the level of education. Dr.J Kumar, VC of the GB Pant University received this running trophy, a letter of appreciation and Rs 2 lakh for the library at the meeting held at Raj Bhawan. This was the three-monthly meeting which the Governor holds with VCs of State universities at Raj Bhawan. The second position was bagged by Kumaun university, Nainital and the third position was attained by Doon University, Dehradun. Kuamun University received a letter of appreciation and Rs 1 lakh for its library while Doon University received a letter of appreciation and a sum of Rs 75,000 for the library. The result of the inter-university competition was announced by the Governor on Monday. The fourth position was obtained by Uttarakhand Hortculture and Forestry University which received a letter of appreciation and Rs 50,000 for the library.
It may be mentioned here that 16 important points were taken on which the parameters were decided for assessing the performance of the universities. Among these were NAAC approval, smart campus, research publications, patents, schedule of convocation, schedule of exams and results, 12 B status of UGC and receiving grants, student-teacher ratio, placement record , tutorial status , report of the progress of villages adopted by the university, creation of centre of excellence and coordination with the industrial sector under their CSR plan . The status of the major committee and cells at the universities was also assessed .
Expressing happiness Dr Paul said that the competition would help improve the standard of higher education and research in the State. Each university would have to ensure that it should achieve excellence in one field or the other. These efforts would help build trust among people.
VCs should give emphasis on innovation and research and should ensure that exams were held in time and so were convocations. They should also prepare annual resports. During meeting he said that in the villages adopted by the universities, they should focus on encouraging the villagers to ensure garbage disposal, solarisation, saving water , saving fuel and carry out tree plantation.
Also, help lines and help centres must be set up by universities, especially G.B.Pant university and the Horticulture university , to help villagers and give them proper guidance.
These two universities will have to play an important role in helping farmers make hill agriculture beneficial. The Governor directed that vacancies for registrars , exam controllers and other important posts must be filled . He said surprise checking should be carried out and ragging should be strictly checked.