With more and more autonomous colleges urging for university status, the Ministry for Human Resources Development (MHRD) has asked the State Government to review the improvements of those institutions.
Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar has asked the officials to look into the matter as more and more colleges are pressing for being upgraded to a university.
Queries have been raised over their demand, said official sources as number of autonomous colleges, which have been upgraded to university status, are also urging for release of funds for improvement.
New universities like Khallikote University, Berhampur and GM University, Sambalpur have urged for funds for infrastructure and improvement.
At least Rs110 crore has been demanded from the MHRD as both the autonomous colleges have been grated university status by the MHRD. Similarly the RD Women’s Autonomous College, which has been upgraded to university status, is also pressing for funds from the MHRD. While the university asked for Rs55 crore, Rs27.5 crore has been released under the RUSA Project, sources said.
The RD Women’s University is now an affiliating university, with 46 women’s colleges from the Utkal University now having been put under the new university. This has been done for better administrative and academic ease, officials say.
The MHRD sources said that at least four autonomous colleges have applied for upgradation into university from Odisha. They include the Government Autonomous College Bhadrak , DD Autonomous College Keonjhar, Vikram Dev Autonomous College, Jeypore and the Government Autonomous College, Bhawanipatna.
All these four institutions have applied for the university status and waiting for months together, sources said in Department of Higher Education (DoHE).
The peoples’ representatives ask if Khurda district can have two Government run universities and three private universities, why cannot KoraputIJ Similarly Ganjam district is having two universities, Bhanja Vihar and Khallikote Cluster University, they point out. Apart from the 12 existing State universities, there are four private universities operating in the State and two Deemed Universities are also in operation, sources said.
last year a private university, the Birla Global University, came up in Bhubaneswar and at least 35 proposals are under scrutiny for Unitary Private University in the State, sources said.