Shillong, May 16: The North Eastern Hill University Teachers’ Association (NEHUTA) has expressed concern over the “non-performance” of the incumbent Vice Chancellor, Prof S K Srivastava and threatened to launch a series of agitations to put pressure on the authority to improve the condition of the University and stop its deterioration any further.

The decision was taken at the first meeting of the new NEHUTA executive committee held here on Thursday. Prof Xavier P Mao was re-elected as the president of the association during the recently held election of the new office bearers for the term 2019-20.

Prof Mao said the EC has expressed serious concern over the inordinate delay and stagnation in all spheres of functioning of the premier University, particularly, in career advancement of Assistant Professors from stage I to II to III, which is a routine matter.

He said as per UGC regulations, such a routine matter is to be carried out in every six months. As a result, the Assistant Professors got demotivated and became distraught about such complete indifferent by the NEHU administration.

The president further alleged that even the earmarked annual grant for the previous year for NEHUTA has not been released by the VC adding too many faculty positions in all the departments are all vacant, and the VC has not taken any steps to fill up these posts.

“From the earlier position of being 16th in 2012, now NEHU had slided to 39, as a consequence of his absenteeism, non-performance and the resultant piling up of files,” he said.

He also announced that the new EC decided to launch a series of agitations to press the authority to take steps to improve the condition of the University and stop its deterioration any further.

He said during Prof Srivastava’s three and half years tenure, not a single hostel has been built and the students are forced to stay in expensive and congested private hostels, far away from the University campus, resulting in a toll on their health and academic performance.

Meanwhile, the NEHUTA calls upon the NEHU administration to resolve these and other urgent issues on a war footing to save the premier University of national importance.

The other newly elected office bearers include Prof Utpal Kumar De as vice president, Dr Marbhador Manick Khymdeit as general secretary, Dr Phrangstone Khongji as joint secretary and Dr Pankaj Sarkar as treasurer.