West Bengal Assembly passes law raising retirement age of state-aided universities’ vice-chancellors from 65 to 70 years

Kolkata: West Bengal Assembly on Wednesday passed a bill to raise the retirement age of vice-chancellors of state-aided universities from 65 years to 70 years. The West Bengal University Laws (Amendment) Bill was passed to enable the vice-chancellors to serve the institutes for a longer period. [caption id=“attachment_6931681” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had announced in a public meeting in January that the government would raise the age of retirement of the vice-chancellors. Many vice-chancellors above 65 years can be very active and contribute towards the development of universities, an official of the state education department said. He said, as the assembly was not in session, the state government had earlier promulgated the West Bengal University laws (Amendment) Ordinance, 2019 for the purpose as some vice-chancellors were going to retire on 31 March, 2019. Since 2011, 2012, the West Bengal Assembly has passed as many as 18 bills to set up universities in almost all the districts of the state. Currently, there are at least 30 state-aided universities in the state.