Author: Iftikhar Gilani
Publication: Tehelka.com
Date: September 1, 2011
URL: http://www.tehelka.com/story_main50.asp?filename=Ws010911EDUCATION.asp
No VC or University exists as per ministry,
but every month, a 'VC' and other office bearers take home fat salaries
An ambitious plan of setting up the Nalanda
University on the ruins of the ancient one - once a great seat of learning
in Buddhist philosophy and statecraft - as perhaps the first residential international
educational institution from 5th to 12th century, off Patna, is besmirched
with controversies even before it starts any academic courses.
On 25 August the Ministry of External Affairs,
which took up the matter regarding the university as its baby, told Rajya
Sabha that no Vice-Chancellor has been appointed for the University. However,
in an RTI reply on November 22 last year, the same ministry under the signatures
of Joint Secretary Nagendra Kumar Saxena revealed that on the recommendations
of the Nalanda Mentor Group, Dr Gopa Sabharwal was formally appointed Vice
Chancellor.
The university was conceptualised as an international
university involving the 16 ASEAN countries like China, Japan, Australia,
Korea and Thailand. China has now, on its own, conceptualised an international
Buddhist University in Lumbini, the birth-place of Gautama Buddha, now in
Nepal.
The government has spent Rs 2.11 crore on
meetings held by a 'mentor group' constituted under the chairmanship of Professor
Amartya Sen in Singapore, Tokyo, New York, Delhi and Gaya to conceptualise
establishment of the university. The group formed in 2007 was supposed to
file a final report within a period of nine months but has not filed it yet.
The Parliament, however, enacted the law for it in 2010 which was notified
on September 22, 2010.
The controversy, however, erupted with the
appointment of a 'Vice Chancellor-designate'of the new university even before
the Act was notified for its establishment and that too at a fantastic monthly
salary of Rs 5 lakhs plus, which is more than double the salary of the Delhi
University vice-chancellor.
The incumbent Gopa Sabharwal, appointed through
an order issued by a secretary in MEA on the recommendation of the mentor
group, is just a reader in the department of sociology in the Lady Sri Ram
College and has nothing to do with the Buddhist studies for which the university
is to be set up. She did not meet the mandatory qualification set by the University
Grants Commission (UGC) for the vice-chancellors of the central and state
universities to be distinguished academicians with a minimum ten years of
experience as a professor in a university system.
Questions are being asked as to who authorised
the mentor group to recommend the name of the first VC of the university and
why the ministry accepted the sole name proposed without seeking a panel of
names required for such an appointment. However, Minister of State of External
Affairs E Ahamed flatly denied appointment of any such vice-chancellor of
the Nalanda University when asked by BJP MP Anil Dave in the Rajya Sabha on
August 25.
Ignoring the government's recruitment rules
that require public notice, Dr Sabharwal picked up her friend Dr Anjana Sharma,
an associate professor in Delhi University, as the Officer-on-Special Duty
(OSD) on deputation, with gross monthly salary of Rs 3.30 lakhs, which is
more than the salary of a Vice-Chancellor in the rest of the country.
None in the mentor group, nor Dr Sabharwal
have any background understanding of Nalanda nor did they consult any Buddhist
or Tibetan institutions well-versed with the Nalanda tradition. They also
found nothing wrong in setting up headquarters of the university in a rented
building in the RK Puram area of south Delhi in January this year even though
the Act specifically says the university's headquarters shall be in Nalanda
district in Bihar.
The Standing Committee of the ministry says
in its report just tabled in Parliament that the Nalanda project was estimated
in 2007 to cost Rs 1,005 crore but this may have to be revised, and that the
same mentor group has now become the interim governing board of the university.
In its very first meeting in February, this board nominated adviser committee
to help out and two persons representing India in it are Ms Upinder Singh,
daughter of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and her colleague Ms Nayanjot Lahiri,
who are not experts on any aspect of the Nalanda tradition or history.
The Bihar Government has already acquired
and transferred 446 acres of land in Rajbir, in the vicinity of the original
Nalanda University site, but there seems to be nobody to monitor whether the
new university will be living up to the reflected glory and really be built
in a contemporary form involving India and other East Asian countries.
. In reply to an unstarred question on August
25, Ministry of External Affairs said no vice-chancellor has been appointed
in Nalanda University.
. However, according to an RTI reply, vice
chancellor Gopa Sabharwal and seven of her associates are drawing salaries
since October 2010. Vice-chancellor draws salary of Rs 5,06,513 per month.
. As per the Act, the headquarters should
be at Nalanda, Bihar, but within two months of Gazette notification on September
22 last year, were shifted to RK Puram in New Delhi
. President approved the Act on September
21 last year. The VC was appointed on September 9.
. The Act came into force on November 25,
2010.
. Under Government of India Allocation of
Business Rules, 1961, MEA is not authorised to manage or own a university
unless part of an inter-governmental agreement. No inter-governmental agreement
exists for Nalanda University, unlike the South Asian University.
- Iftikhar Gilani is a Special Correspondent
with Tehelka.com. iftikhar@tehelka.com
