Kolkata: Senior academics, including former vice-chancellors and emeritus professors, urged governor RN Ravi, the ex-officio chancellor of the state universities, to refrain from giving his consent to the inter-university transfer bill or West Bengal Universities and Colleges (Administration and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026 that was passed in the Assembly on Sept 10.They raised concerns over potential disruptions to research programmes. Among the signatories were Amita Chatterjee, professor emerita at Jadavpur University (JU) and former vice-chancellor of Presidency University; Ashok Ranjan Thakur, former vice-chancellor of West Bengal State University and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology; Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury, former vice-chancellor of Rabindra Bharati University; Anupam Basu, former director of NIT Durgapur; Sukanta Chaudhuri, professor emeritus at JU; and Supriya Chaudhuri, professor emerita at JU. They said transferring staff from one institution to another would damage the structural balance of institutions and hamper teaching and research programmes.The letter highlighted that courses and research programmes are planned by and for particular teachers, which would be impacted if they were transferred. Research work would be widely affected because specific faculty members attract fresh researchers to specialised fields. The letter reads, “Major research funding is invariably linked to the assurance of expert faculty members as Principal Investigators. No funder would agree to fund a project without this assurance.” They said interdisciplinary and multi-institutional projects would be jeopardised.
