Bengal Cabinet approves CM as chancellor of state universities replacing guv

The West Bengal cabinet on Monday gave its approval to remove the governor and make the chief minister the chancellor of all state-run agriculture, health and animal resources universities, in addition to those under the education department, a senior official said.

The cabinet also agreed to the proposal to remove the governor from the post of the visitor of private universities and give it to the states education minister instead.

Mondays meeting was presided over by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee herself. The cabinet on Monday gave its consent to make the chief minister the chancellor of all state-run universities, including those under the agricultural, health and animal resources development departments, the official said.

It had on May 26 given its nod to the proposal that the chief minister would be the chancellor of all state-run universities run by the education department. The proposal will be introduced as a bill in the assembly in the coming monsoon session, the official said.

When passed the chief minister will head the agriculture universities of Kalyani and North Bengal, besides the West Bengal University of Health Services, besides the prestigious Calcutta University and Jadavpur Universities which are under the education department. The governor is at present the chancellor of all the state-run universities and the move to hand it over to the chief minister is being seen in political circles in the state as taking the ongoing conflict between Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar and the Trinamool Congress government to a new level.

Dhankhar and the ruling TMC have shared an acrimonious relation from the time that the governor took up office in July 2019.

The state cabinet also gave its consent to abolish the West Bengal Group D Recruitment Board. Henceforth the recruitment for the group will be done through the Staff Selection Commission. The West Bengal Group D Recruitment Board was formed in November 2015 after a law was passed in the Assembly. A test was held next year to recruit people in 6,000 posts and around 25 lakh job seekers had appeared for it. Though appointments were made to at least 5,500 posts, no suitable candidates were found for the rest of the remaining 500. The state cabinet on Monday gave its approval to appoint 2,500 ASHA workers, who are engaged in various health-related projects. Later, addressing a press conference at the West Bengal assembly, state Industry Minister Partha Chatterjee said the state government has given its nod to Adani Enterprises for setting up a hyper-scale data centre at Bengal Silicon Valley in the New Town area of the city.

The cabinet gave its go ahead to the company to set up the facility on 51.75 acres.

“The state cabinet today gave the nod to the proposal by Adani Enterprises to set up a 100 per cent hyper-scale data centre at Bengal Silicon Valley in New Town, Rajarhat. The project will come up on 51.75 acres, which has been given on a 99-year lease,” Chatterjee said.

He, however, declined to disclose the amount of investment or the number of jobs that is projected to be generated by the proposed center.

Bengal Silicon Valley is an innovative information technology hub, which is envisioned to attract investment in IT, ITeS and telecom projects with employment potential.

During the sixth edition of the Bengal Global Business Summit in April this year, the Adani Group had committed Rs 10,000 crore investment over a decade in port infrastructure, data centres and undersea cables, centres of excellence in digital innovation, fulfilment centres, warehouses and logistics parks.

Chatterjee said four cycle companies would be set up on five acres at Kharagpur Vidyasagar Industrial Park with an investment of Rs 10 crore each. Each company will generate employment for 150 people.

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