Mysuru: Former University of Mysore (UoM)and KSOU Vice-Chancellor (VC) Prof. K.S. Rangappa has taken strong objection to the University’s decision to revoke the autonomy granted to Yuvaraja’s College.

Objecting to current UoM VC Prof. N.K. Lokanath’s statement during the University Budget and Special Academic Council Meeting held on Thursday that autonomy to Yuvaraja’s College has been withdrawn due to inevitable reasons, Prof. Rangappa asserted that there is no relationship to the alleged misuse of Rs. 1 crore UGC grant to the college and the reasons assigned by the VC for withdrawal of Autonomy.

Questioning why Prof. Lokanath who has been the UoM VC for three years, has not taken any action of fund misuse, Prof. Rangappa expressed concern that the withdrawal of autonomy to Yuvaraja’s College now will hurt the status of the college.

Accusing Prof. Lokanath of misleading the UoM Syndicate and Academic Council Members through false claims, Prof. Rangappa alleged that the Autonomy was withdrawn after forcibly obtaining ‘Don’t want autonomy’ letters from Yuvaraja’s College teaching faculty. The revoking of the Autonomy will surely hurt the independence of the college,       he maintained.

Cancellation of A-Scheme affects students

Severely opposing the UoM’s decision to scrap A-Scheme and bring changes to B-Scheme in the University’s Post-Graduate Courses admission, Prof. Rangappa said, earlier, 50 percent of the seats were reserved for meritorious students under A-Scheme, while the remaining 50 percent of the seats were allotted under B-Scheme upon payment of prescribed fees. But now, Prof. Lokanath has scrapped A-Scheme, which has dealt a huge blow to meritorious and poor students, he argued.

Courses shut down

Commenting on Prof. Lokanath’s claims that no courses have been shut down in UoM, Prof. Rangappa maintained that several courses have been shut down in the past 3 years. This has severely hurt academics in the University, he said and demanded an internal inquiry into the matter.

Claiming that UoM Treasury was going empty due to unnecessary expenditures, Prof. Rangappa said, UoM had a corpus fund of Rs. 400 crore which included allotments for pensions, general funds and other resources, when he left UoM  nearly 10 years ago. But now, Prof. Lokanath is only engaged in inviting tenders and spending money heavily on unnecessary works. This has led UoM on the path of bankruptcy, he claimed.