VS Acharya’s barrage of letters upset Bangalore University officials

Officials are upset as the state higher education minister VS Acharya keeps shooting arbitrary letters to Bangalore University.

DNA managed to get copies of letters written by him to the university. RTI information available with DNA shows that Acharya had written 34 letters to the university and most of them related to silly matters.

Through the letters, Acharya tried to interfere in the university’s decisions by asking officials to withdraw some decisions and follow his direction. According to university officials, the minister has no authority to interfere in some of the decisions taken by the university.

“For example, the minister has no powers to ask the university to reconsider its decision on issues such as providing re-affiliation or enhancement of seats. He/she can unofficially communicate with the university but should not send official letters,” said one of the former vice-chancellors.

But in the case of Acharya, majority of the letters which he sent to BU related to matters such as considering a particular college for re-affiliation, batting for some particular college for enhancement of seats, asking the university to withdraw the order of collecting penalty from a particular college etc.

“Being a minister, he can communicate to the university only through the higher education department on matters such as re-affiliation or fee enhancement. The government has powers in case of providing new affiliation but it never interferes in issues like re-affiliation or seats enhancement,” said a senior official from the higher education department.

Requesting anonymity, the vice-chancellor of one of the top universities in the state, said: “There is a particular procedure that should be followed by the university while providing re-affiliation or enhancing seats. Based on the applications received from the colleges, the university will constitute a committee (LIC) to visit and inspect the college.”

“The report submitted by the committee will be placed before the academic council and syndicate for approval. Later, just for the sake of information, we will send it to government. Normally, the government will not interfere in the decisions of the university committees, academic council and syndicate.

“If the government wants to interfere, that is only through officials of the higher education department. Minister and his personal secretary have nothing to do with it,” he said.

Speaking to DNA, Acharya defended his penchant for shooting off letters to university authorities to get things done. “I am forced to take up the issues strongly with the university authorities if the work concerned is not done in reasonable time or any issue is not resolved without delay,” he said.

He said he was compelled to take up the issues whenever people approached him after not getting any response from the university authorities in addressing them.