Chennai: After 22 long years, Anna University may relieve itself from the task of conducting the onerous annual engineering counselling following differences between the university administration and higher education department in the reconstitution of Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) committee.
Vice-Chancellor of Anna University, MK Surappa, has sent in his resignation as the chairman of the TNEA and TANCA (Tamil Nadu Common Admissions (for PG courses) committees to the higher education secretary Mangat Ram Sharma recently.
It is alleged that the higher education secretary has made himself as coordinator of TNEA. Until now, the higher education secretary is just a member of the committee. Anna University had come in for great appreciation from students, parents and academics for the efficient manner in which engineering admissions have been conducted through a single window counselling in the past 22 years, but this year the onus of holding the counselling may go back to the Directorate of Technical Education (DOTE).
“These committees were constituted in November 2017 for a period of three years. There is no need to reconstitute the present committee after completing one year,” sources in the university said.
“The DOTE commissioner R.Vivekanandan has been made co-chairman of the committee to undermine the current Vice-Chancellor,” reliable sources said adding that Mr.Vivekanandan is a registered PhD candidate in the university.
It is learnt that the V-C of Anna University has expressed his concerns to the higher education department on how the reconstitution of committees was done arbitrarily without consulting him.
Reliable sources confirmed that the V-C has sent his resignation to the higher education department. “After his resignation, Anna University may not have any role in the upcoming engineering counselling and admissions,” sources added.
The decision to cut the fuel to university cars used by the higher education minister K.P. Anbalagan and secretary Mangat Ram Sharma seems to have worsened the ties between the higher education department and university administration.
“Now, the officials are trying to infringe into the autonomy of the university and are unnecessarily creating hurdles to various initiatives. The higher education secretary has not attended the last three syndicate meetings. If the issue is not resolved, it would affect thousands of engineering students and aspirants,” senior professors in the university said.
There is a question mark as to who will conduct the engineering counselling in place of Anna University, which has the technical prowess to undertake such a complicated task.
Replacing the single window counselling, the state government introduced online counselling for engineering admissions in 2018-19. After five rounds of counselling, 72,648 B.E./B.Tech. seats were filled and 97,890 seats remained vacant.
