Chennai: UGC former vice-chairman K.Devraj, former vice-chancellor of Anna University P. Kaliraj and Anna University registrar S. Ganesan were among the eight candidates interviewed by Anna University V-C search panel headed by Justice V.S. Sirpurkar for top academician post at the premier technical university on Saturday.
The list of shortlisted candidates also includes S. Ponnusamy, a former professor of IIT Madras and M.K. Surappa, a honorary professor from department of materials engineering from IISc, Bangalore.
"The search committee patiently listened to the vision presented by all the shortlisted candidates. Each candidate was interviewed for nearly one hour," one of the V-C candidates told this paper.
The interview has started at 9.30 am at the Dharbar Hall in Raj Bhavan. The candidates were interviewed up to 5.30 pm in the evening.
The two other members of the panel are retired IAS officer N. Sundaradevan and IIT Madras Professor R.Gnanamoorthy.
"The panel members have asked about the kind of changes we wanted to make in the university and how we are going to source our funds for the new projects that we presented," another candidate said.
When asked about the interview one of the candidates termed it as the decent one. "They were polite and asked questions according to our CVs and background," he noted.
He further said whoever made the Vice-Chancellor he would be a meritorious candidate as all the candidates are scholars in their own respective areas.
While inviting the candidates for interview the committee has chosen candidates from different social backgrounds to ensure equal representation. These candidates belong to OC, BC, MBC, SC and ST categories.
The search committee is likely to submit the list of three candidates to the Governor on Saturday itself. The appointment of Vice-Chancellor is expected to take place in a day or two.
Of the 170 applications, the committee has shortlisted 30 candidates after three rounds of elimination. It further ranked the candidates according to their administrative and academic achievements. Based on the score, it has invited nine candidates for interview. Among the nine candidates, R. Ramesh, director NCSCM has expressed his unwillingness to attend the interview.
