College Street: Calcutta University (CU) will soon issue an advertisement for the appointment of a full-term registrar, paving the way for ending the practice of having interim registrars since September 2015.

The absence of a full-term registrar has earned the university a rap from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) in its latest report.

"The syndicate meeting on March 26 resolved to start the process of appointing a full-term registrar by issuing an advertisement. The advertisement will be published in a day or two. We will not recruit any more interim registrar. We hope to wrap up the recruitment process as soon as possible," vice-chancellor Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee said.

The registrar's post fell vacant after Basab Chaudhuri had sought two years' lien from the university to take over as interim vice-chancellor of West Bengal State University, Barasat.

Soma Bandyopadhyay, a professor in the Hindi department of the university, was appointed interim registrar following Chaudhuri's departure. She stayed in the post till April 2017.

Thereafter, Rajagopal Dhar Chakraborti, a professor in the department of south and southeast Asian studies in the university, served as interim registrar till March 26. He has been appointed director of the Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management, (IISWBM), which is affiliated to CU.

According to the UGC, a full-term registrar must have "at least 15 years' experience as assistant professor or eight years' of service as associate professor along with experience in university administration or comparable experience in research establishment and/or other institutions of higher education or 15 years of administrative experience, of which eight years shall be as deputy registrar or an equivalent post".

The latest NAAC report, prepared after a team from the agency inspected the university in December 2016, criticised the authorities for running the institute with interim appointees in key posts such as vice-chancellor, registrar and controller of examinations.

The university scored a CGPA (cumulative grade point average) of 3.2 out of 4 in the latest assessment and was given an A - two notches below the best, A++. CU had got an A in the previous inspection (2009), too, but the CGPA score was marginally higher - 3.3.

The NAAC mentioned in the report that the lack of full-term appointees was partly responsible for the fall in score, campus sources said.

The university has appointed full-term candidates to the posts of vice-chancellor and the controller of examinations since.