Bhubaneswar, March 17: Manoranjan Kar was today appointed vice-chancellor of the Odisha University of Agriculture Technology (OUAT). The order was issued by the Raj Bhavan hours before outgoing governor M.C. Bhandare left for Delhi this afternoon.

Kar, 57, today met the governor and submitted his joining letter. He assumes responsibility of the coveted post, which had fallen vacant nearly three months ago, with immediate effect.

Kar, who received a call about his appointment around 11.30am, said Bhandare had a lot of expectations from him. “He shook hands with me and said he had made me the vice-chancellor because he wants to see OUAT as the No. 1 government agriculture university in India,” he said. The OUAT, which celebrated its golden jubilee last year, is ranked sixth among all state-run agriculture varsities of the country.

Before leaving for Puri to seek Lord Jagannath’s blessings, Kar said his thrust would be on teaching, research and extension education, in that order. “Global warming and climate change have assumed great significance in the present context and we will steer our education and research towards that to figure out solutions that will help our farmers, in particular and the agriculture sector in general,” he said.

Kar was born at Oupada village in Pattamundai, Kendrapara. After completing his intermediate studies from Rairangpur, he did his graduation and postgraduation in agriculture from the OUAT. In 1980, he joined his alma mater as a lecturer in plant physiology and went on to do his Ph.D from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. Subsequently, he became associate professor and head of the plant physiology department. He has also headed the department of performance, monitoring and evaluation and dean of students’ welfare at the OUAT. A year ago, he had been named dean of College of Agriculture.

After former VC D.P. Ray retired on December 17, 2012, Bhandare interviewed nine candidates short-listed by the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (Icar) and the state government. The governor had later asked for the confidential character roll of five of the contenders — Manoranjan Kar, S.S. Nanda, Dibakar Nayak, Ashutosh Samanatray and Budhadeb Mishra, all from OUAT.