The Hynñiewtrep Youths Council (HYC) today pulled no punches in its strident criticism of Prof PS Shukla, who has been Vice-Chancellor of North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU) for exactly one year.
Calling him the “absconding VC”, the pressure group tore into Shukla for failing to live up to the hopes that were placed in him when he took over from his much-maligned predecessor Prof SK Srivastava.
The HYC said that Shukla is often away from the university, leaving the varsity “to a set of even more unworthy followers.”
“We had earlier seen towering academic personalities like Prof Pakem and Prof Miri giving top priority to NEHU above everything else. By appointing Prof PS Shukla, the Centre has again sent an unqualified person as Vice-Chancellor of a very prestigious central university,” the HYC said.
Apart from some cosmetic changes, Shukla has largely ignored the burning issues that afflict NEHU, the pressure group continued, such as appalling infrastructure, maintenance of roads and buildings and funding for academic programmes. Instead of working towards these, Shukla is guilty of “passing the buck on to others without taking any responsibility on himself.”
All this has had an effect on NEHU’s rankings, with the university’s place in the NRF ranking sliding seven places to 66 while it does not even feature in the combined institutional list of 100 universities.
“This is a great shame for the entire region, as NEHU is led by one of the most inept and unqualified Vice-Chancellors in its whole history. In his haste to implement all the directives from New Delhi, with his absolutely zero knowledge of the local situation, he is taking all anti-student decisions in matters of admission. Alarming changes in NEHU’s reservation policy for students’ admission is something that betrays the trust with which the fraternity accepted him as NEHU Vice-Chancellor,” the HYC said.
In its list of indictments, it added that NEHU is spending large amounts of revenue on unnecessary and un-academic matters while funding for research activities has faltered, critical laboratory instruments do not function and the Tura campus is pathetic.
