Students’ union election one-day affair: Min

In a major step, the State Government has amended the recommendation of Lyngdoh committee for the students’ union elections of  the colleges and the universities. The student leaders can now spend Rs 25,000 during their election campaign which is a five time increase from the present limit of Rs 5000. The president and the general secretaries of the university would now be the special invited members in the academic councils of the universities.

Informing the newspersons at Vidhan Sabha auditorium here after chairing a meeting of the officials of higher education department on the issue on Friday, the Minister of State Dhan Singh Rawat said that the students’ union elections in all the colleges of the State would be held on a single day.

He, further, said that the students’ union elections in all the colleges would be held before September 10 while the election of student federation in the universities would be completed before September 15.  Rawat said that the student union elections are staggered over a period of 40 days and in the new format, the elections would be held on single day which will enable session regularisation and 180 days of teaching in a session.

The Minister claimed that Uttarakhand is the first State where a committee was set up to incorporate practical changes in the Lyngdoh committee recommendations. This committee headed by vice- chancellor of Uttarakhand Residential University Almora, H S Dhami has submitted its report. Rawat added that the committee has recommended that six posts of the students’ union should be filled through elections while six of them would be nominated.

The nominated members would include the toppers from the graduates and the post graduate courses besides the National Cadet Corps (NCC), National Service Scheme (NSS) and students involved in creative activities. The post of the vice-president would be reserved for women and the post of president and general secretary would be reserved in rotation by the next election.

In reply to a question, the Minister said that the electronic voting machines ( EVM) would be provided for the students’ union elections on demand of the principals.

He added that to operate the students’ federation expenditure, a charge of Rs 5 per student would be taken annually. The principal and the election officer/dean student welfare along with president, general secretary and treasurer would be given the right to jointly spend the fund.

Immediately after the election of the students’ union, the Higher Education Department would host a students’ union conference during which suggestions for improving the quality of higher education would be taken, the Minister added.