Coming, new universities

The HRD ministry has decided to bring in legislation for 16 new central universities to be set up over the next five years, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Oct 2, 2007, 03:09:54 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

The HRD ministry has decided to bring in legislation for 16 new central universities to be set up over the next five years. The Bill is likely to be introduced in the winter session of Parliament.

According to ministry officials, a draft called the Central Universities Act has been circulated to different ministries, seeking their views. The draft will be readied for Cabinet approval some time in November. The government has decided to allocate Rs 300 crore for each of the 16 universities over the next five years.

Ministry officials say the new law intends to provide a uniform calendar in all central universities and mobility of students within central varsities. "The law is in accordance with international standards of higher education," said an official.

The new universities will be modelled on Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). The draft law prepared in consultation with education experts gives autonomy to the academic and executive councils of the new universities.

The Planning Commission had recommended a common entrance examination for admission to all central universities. A provision making this feasible is likely to be incorporated in the new legislation.

The government has already shortlisted the states where the new universities will be set up. Orissa and Bihar are some of the states in contention. The Prime Minister has approved a plan for higher education, envisioning new central varsities, 370 new colleges and 6,000 higher secondary schools.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Check India news real-time updates, latest news on Hindustan Times and more across India.