University of Hyderabad VC runs up phone bill of Rs 4.46L in two years Timesof India, HYDERABAD: Even as the government has been urging all central universities to adopt strict austerity measures over the past few years, authorities at the University of Hyderabad (UoH) seem to have ignored the diktat. Between June 2011 and June 2013, the varsitys vice-chancellor Ramakrishna Ramaswamy incurred a whopping Rs 4.46 lakh as bills for his three mobile phones, records show. The steep mobile expenses were caused by excessive calls from Ramaswamys primary number and bill records obtained by a source under the Right to Information (RTI) Act reveals how the vice-chancellor spent Rs 1.75 lakh on his primary phone between June, 2011 and July, 2011. From February to March 2012, a bill of Rs 76,858 was paid by the varsity as bill, while another bill of Rs 23,704 was raised in the September-November 2011 period. Rs 32,640 was paid in the May-June 2012 period while the bill for the August-September 2011 period stood at Rs 13,013. However, the consolidated telephone bills came down substantially between June 2012 and June 2013, when compared to the previous months and the bill amount stood at Rs 27,382. The last bill obtained under RTI revealed that the VC spent only Rs 1,754 on his primary number for the May-June, 2013 period, showing that fewer calls were made. The varsity also paid thousands of rupees on the vice-chancellors two other mobile connections, including Rs 36,507 on one of the phones for the August, 2012 to July 2013 period. Meanwhile, Ramaswamy said all calls made from his numbers were for official purposes. All the official numbers were used only for official purposes. The six months, during which the bill was high, I was travelling abroad and had to deal with some administrative matters of the university. I did not use the phones for my personal purpose, he said. With the Union government asking universities to cut down expenses by reducing foreign trips and the sanctioning of additional faculty and non-teaching staff posts, the phone bills are under the scrutiny of the ministry of human resource development (MHRD), sources said.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Oct 2013 04:23:43 +0000
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