Date:26/07/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/07/26/stories/2007072660461500.htm

National

Draft Bill ready for establishing sixteen more Central universities

Aarti Dhar

NEW DELHI: The Union Human Resource Development Ministry is ready with a draft Bill for establishing 16 Central universities across the country.

The draft of the umbrella legislation that will govern all the new proposed Central universities — for the first time — has been sent to various Ministries for their comments. All Central universities so far have been established under different Acts.

As of now, there are only 22 Central universities in the country with Delhi having as many as four while 16 States have none. The proposed universities are believed to have been modelled as unitary, non-affiliating universities on the pattern of the Jawaharlal Nehru and Hyderabad universities.

The States identified for setting up these universities in the next five years at an estimated cost of Rs 5,000 crore in addition to the annual grants are Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat, Haryana, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Punjab.

Last week during his one day visit to Jammu, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced one Central university for Jammu and Kashmir.

Dr. Singh’s initiative for improved university system came in June when he announced at least one Central university for each State and a degree college for every district following a meeting on higher education with Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh, and Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram