Ending all speculations, the President of India gave his assent to sack National Institute of Technology, Rourkela (NITR) Board of Governors (BoG) Chairman Vasantha Ramaswamy.
It may be noted here that in the first week of November, 2014, the HRD Ministry had appointed her as the first lady Chairperson (honorary) of BoG, NITR for three years. Besides Ramaswamy, four more top women executives were also appointed as Chairperson of Trichy, Suratkal, Calicut and Surat Trichy respectively.
Ramaswamy was the Joint Director with the DRDO of the Government of India and winner of Agni Award for excellence in self reliance in 1999. She is the Founder Director of Aprameya Associates, Pune. She had taken over as the Chairperson of BoG, NITR on November 14, 2014.
Initially everything was right for a few months between her and the then NITR Director Sunil Sarangi. However, a rift between them started on exercising of power. The situation went worst when on September 20, 2015 Sarangi suspended NITR Registrar SK Upadhyay and the Chairperson declared it illegal. To resolve the row between two top post holders of the institution, the HRD called for a meeting where the suspension was revoked from the Registrar but he was not allowed to function with power unless the inquiry is completed on the allegations framed by the Director.
With this the row between the Director and the Chairperson could not come to an end; rather the situation grew worse when the Chairperson raised objection on the functioning of Sarangi as Director as per the agreement of his appointment.
Due to their row the institute’s image was not only tainted but also the HRD curtailed the financial assistance which caused hurdles in the development works of the NITR. Having no other way, the HRD called an emergency meeting on April 22 last and asked both of them to resign within a week.
Though Sarangi tendered his resignation on May 1 last, but Ramaswamy did not. Her argument was, she had not applied for the post, rather the Government had posted her in the job. Even the HRD could not take any early action on the resignation of the Director; rather allowed him to continue till June 30 and finally his resignation was technically approved on the last day of his office.
Now, NITR has neither a Chairperson nor a regular Director. According to the Registrar, as per rule there would be no problem for holding any BoG if needed as any other member of the BoG can preside over the meeting if required. He also expects early posting of a regular Director.