As a New Year gift to the State, the Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry under the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) programme has accorded university status to the Rama Devi Autonomous Women’s College in Bhubaneswar and cluster university status to the Khallikote Autonomous College in Brahmapur.
“The premier women’s college would be the first women’s university in the State. All women colleges hitherto under the jurisdiction of Utkal University would now come under Rama Devi Women’s University while the nearby colleges would come under the Khallikote Cluster University,” Higher Education Minister Pradeep Panigrahy said.
Under the Cluster University scheme, about four to five colleges in a region will be turned into a cluster and granted autonomy to share infrastructure and teaching faculty and function like a university. Four colleges affiliated to Brahampur University, Chhatrapur College, Shashi Bhushan Rath Government Women’s College, Binayak Acharya College and Gopalpur College, will be the constituent colleges of the newly created Khalikote Cluster University.
Both the new universities will get Rs55 crore each for infrastructure development and hiring of faculty members. Similarly, three colleges, SCS (Autonomous) College, Government Degree College, Sundergarh, and KKS Women’s College, Baleswar will be converted into model colleges and get Rs4 crore each while 31 other colleges will get Rs2 crore each under RUSA.
The Minister also informed that Govt had demanded Rs956 crore for infrastructure development of six colleges out of which the Centre has agreed to release Rs200 crore for four colleges. Meanwhile, students and authorities of Sailabala Women’s College here are peeved at the decision to give university status to RD Women’s College ahead of it. Despite its 101-year old history and the pioneering role it has played in women’s education since the pre-independence era, Sailabala College always gets ignored. While the State Govt always delays facilitating infrastructure for our college, they didn’t even consider our request to make it a university. We believe this is because our college is in Cuttack instead of the capital city, observed an alumnus.