Himachal Pradesh Governor Bandaru Dattatraya on Wednesday asked authorities in the Himachal Pradesh University here to ensure fulfilment of academic needs of students and also take responsibility to build their courage and ability to enable them to face current challenges.

The Governor, who is also the Chancellor of the University, was addressing the 32nd Annual Court meeting of HPU, Shimla.

He said that technology should be used to make internal processes transparent and directed the members to increase the accountability and responsibility.

He said that important observations made by audit should be addressed in a time bound manner and serious irregularities should be addressed first.

He expressed concern over the absence of some members of the University Court and emphasized that preparation of annual accounts and annual reports should be done in a time bound manner.

Dattatraya said that the University should focus on increasing its income and asked the varsity to lay emphasis on research and development, setting up incubation centers, start-ups and make efforts to patent the same.

He said it is a matter of concern that expenditure of University is increasing and committed liabilities are very high as compared to total income of the University, which leaves little scope for research, innovation and new projects.

He said that we should focus on three major elements which contributed to the progress of the nation including education, employment and empowerment. “The nation develops at a steady pace when the youth of the country were educated and it was the time when commitment was needed to build a strong nation with a universal image, he added and said that this was only possible when the active participation of youth was ensured. The Governor asked to conduct academic and research activities in such a way that the student can transform into a youth who is capable of dealing with various challenge.

The Governor released the documentary HP University Present, Past and Future on the 50 years completion of the University. He also released an amended version of “Kulgeet”.

During the meeting, the University Court approved the Annual Accounts for the year 2016-17 and Annual Report of the year 2018-19.

Vice-Chancellor of HPU, Professor Sikander Kumar presented a detailed report on activities of previous year. He also apprised about the achievements of the University. Registrar, Suneel Sharma conducted the proceedings.