To rein in the private universities in the State, the Uttarakhand Government has decided to bring an umbrella Act. The Minister of State for Higher Education Dhan Singh Rawat said on Wednesday that the Act while granting maximum autonomy to the private universities would at the same time give some control on their functioning to the Government.
He said that the Act would cover all the 22 private universities and all the government universities of the State. The Minister said this after he chaired a meeting of the vice- chancellors (VC) of all the universities based in the state at the state secretariat on the day. It is learnt that the minister had sought suggestions from the VCs about the proposed act during the meeting.
Rawat said that the State Government has constituted a nine- member committee which included VC Swami Ram Himalayan University Vijay Dhasmana, VC of Guru Ram Rai University P P Dhyani and VC of IMS University Rajendra Kumar Pandey.
The issue of making the campuses free from the menace of substance abuse was also taken up in course of the meeting.
The meeting was attended among others by the additional chief secretary Dr Ranvir Singh, VC of Sri Dev Suman University U S Rawat, additional secretary Iqbal Ahmed and VC of Kumaon University D K Nauriyal.