Uttarakhand Governor Krishan Kant Paul honoured vice- chancellors of four State universities for their efforts to enhance the level of education in the year 2016 at Raj Bhawan on Monday. Notably, the running trophy for the Governor’s Best University Award was presented to GB Pant University of Agriculture and Technology for the second consecutive year. The award was instituted at the behest of the Governor to motivate the 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 two lakh for the library on the occasion. The second position was bagged by Kumaun University, Nainital while the third was attained by Doon University, Dehradun. Kuamun University received a letter of appreciation and Rs one lakh for its library while Doon University received a letter of appreciation and a sum of Rs.75,000 for the library. The fourth position was obtained by Uttarakhand Hortculture and Forestry University which received a letter of appreciation and Rs.50,000 for the library. Besides, the result of the inter-university competition was announced by the Governor.
Notably, 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.
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. It is the responsibility of universities to transform knowledge into application so that students could contribute to nation building,” the Governor said.
VCs should give priority to innovation and research and should ensure that exams are held in time and so are the convocations, he said. He also said that the universities should fully focus on encouraging the villages adopted by them to ensure garbage disposal, solarisation, saving water, saving fuel and carrying out tree plantation.
He also stressed on help lines and help centres being set up by the universities, especially G.B.Pant University and the Horticulture University to help the villagers and to give them proper guidance.
“These two universities will have to play an important role in helping the farmers make hill agriculture beneficial,” the Governor said while directing the authorities to fill the vacancies for registrars, examination controllers and other important posts. He said that ragging must be stamped out of the varsity campuses.