PATNA, March 23 -- Bihar governor Lt Gen (Rtd) Syed Aata Hasnain will hold his first meeting to review the higher education scenario, which remained the Achilles heel for the Nitish Kumar government, with the vice chancellors, education minister and other department officials at Raj Bhawan on March 30, said a senior Raj Bhawan official. Having got the bureaucratic feedback on Saturday from chief secretary Pratyaya Amrit on the state of affairs in the higher education sphere and the new initiatives, including creation of a separate higher education department a few months ago and move to align state institutions with the Union ministry of education's centralised Samarth Portal, the governor would now assess the ground realities for a roadmap. "It has been scheduled for March 30 and the all the VCs will attend it. There will be specific agenda for the meeting, as this is the first meeting of the governor in the capacity of chancellor of state universities with the VCs," said the official. The meeting has been called at a time when several JD(U) legislators have also been regularly questioning the goings on in the state universities, corruption issues as well as the appointment of vice chancellors and assistant professors, which has led to hundreds of cases in Patna High Court. The draft statute for future appointments made hurriedly even before the ongoing process on since 2020 could be fully completed has also raised serious questions. "The problem with the state universities is neither new nor unknown. What is expected is an honest effort to stem the rot by getting down to the basics and removing the irritants. With the new governor having served at the highest level in the Army with distinction, there is renewed hope that he would make the difference for the larger good of state universities gasping for breath," said former Patna University head of the English department Shankar Dutt. After JD(U) MLC Sanjiv Kumar Singh wrote to the chancellor's secretariat questioning the draft statute for the appointment of assistant professors, JD(U) MLA Vinay Choudhary, himself a professor, wrote to the education department raising serious questions over the functioning of the Kameshwar Singh Darbhanga Sanskrit University and non-payment of salary to the newly appointed assistant professors for last 18 months. "The education minister has sent the letter to the Lok Bhawan for inquiry. There are various issues. Even the mark sheets are not provided to students for five-six months. Deans are not appointed. The teachers are not being given salary for months even though government has provided the funds and many are being denied joining. Retired ones are suffering without pension and gratuity," said the JD(U) MLA. Other state universities are also not in a better shape. None of them is in the National Institutional Framework Ranking (NIRF) ranking or with good NAAC rating. In the categorisation of universities by the UGC since 2018, none of the state institutions figures. While switchover to Samarth portal is slow, none of them takes admission through Central Universities Entrance Test (CUET). A senior education department official said the PM Usha fund utilisation was also very poor in the state. "Yet, the VCs keep getting one term after another. If the performance of VCs is not taken into account, why will they bother to deliver? The entire setup of higher education is meant for students and everything should be viewed from that perspective. The session is delayed in most universities and there is no seriousness about academic and financial audit. The universities should not be reduced to mere certificate-producing centres," said a former VC, who did not want to be quoted. Besides, there are three universities where VCs are to be appointed, as they are under ad hoc arrangement, while Patna University continues to have two VCs to present a bizarre situation. The appointment of VCs in Bihar is always a high stake matter. Most of the state universities have also been without pro-VCs for years. "The vacancies for VCs in Magadh University, Veer Kurt Singh University and TM Bhagalpur University were advertised during the tenure of Hasnain's predecessor Arif Mohammad Khan. The search committees for each of the three universities was also formed, but now the new governor may take a fresh view," said a Lok Bhawan official. With Bihar heading for political transition, there are chances that the new VCs would be appointed only after the appointment of a new CM succeeding Nitish Kumar, who has decided to move to the Rajya Sabha and already been elected. The apex court had, in an unprecedented move in 2013, quashed the appointment of all the VCs and P-VCs appointed during the tenure of former governor late Devanand Konwar and called for a transparent mechanism involving "meaningful and effective" consultation between the chancellor and the chief minister. It was during Konwar's tenure that the matter of appointment of VCs went up to the SC and laid the foundation for a transparent mechanism of VCs through search committee, though later its impact was also diluted as several VCs ended up getting arrested or had to leave midway through their terms on corruption charges. Former governor Rajendra Vishwanath Achlekar had tried to restore sanctity of campuses by reviving the old tradition of chairing the Senate meeting of the universities. This was the first time in many decades that the governor, in the capacity of chancellor, chaired the senate meetings of universities, but the process got discontinued after his short tenure....