Even as calls are growing louder against the State government for allowing as many as 17 private universities to be set up in the State, Governor and Chancellor of universities H.R. Bhardwaj has given his approval to eight of them. This means that eight of the Bills that were passed by the Legislative Assembly and Council are now Acts, paving the way for their enforcement.
Highly placed sources in Raj Bhavan said that the Governor has signed eight out of the 13 Private University Bills, while the remaining five were subject to examination. The Acts have been gazetted on February 7, the copies of which are with The Hindu .
Apart from the 13 Private University Bills that have reached the Governor, four other Bills were passed on the last day of the budget session on February 16. These include Vydehi University Bill-2013, Garden City University Bill-2013, JSS Science and Technology University Bill-2013 and Srinivasa University Bill 2013. Opposition party members had expressed their dissent at the hurried manner in which they were passed.
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Sources in the Higher Education Department said they were unaware of the developments as the gazetted notifications are moved to the Department of Law and Parliamentary Affairs from Raj Bhavan. “We will only know the status after we receive the gazette copies in the end,” the officials said.
Academics, on the other hand, have voiced their concern about the indiscriminate number of private varsities. M.S. Thimmappa, former Vice-Chancellor of Bangalore University, said that out of the 17 private university Bills passed, only three of them have a good track record. “There are no criteria to pass the private universities Bill. All the Bills should have been passed after an investigation from an independent committee,” he said.