President of India issues ordinance establishing 15 central universities; one in Orissa to be called “Central University of Orissa”
Following is an excerpt from a report in Telegraph.
New Delhi, Jan. 16: President Pratibha Patil has promulgated an ordinance allowing the government to establish 15 new central universities despite last-minute objections by the National Knowledge Commission that the ordinance would hurt higher education.
The President signed the ordinance late last night even as the commission headed by Sam Pitroda tried to convince the Prime Minister and senior government officials against the move.
Patil’s signature triggered a chain of events today that saw the human resource development ministry launch a process of selection of vice-chancellors within hours.
It has also set off fireworks between the commission and the ministry, which the commission believes is keen to retain control over universities while officially calling them autonomous.
… The government is keen to start classes at the universities in the 2009 academic session, said the ministry note to the President.
The ministry, a top HRD official said, will bring the ordinance before both Houses when Parliament meets briefly in February. “We want the ordinance to be cleared by both Houses in the narrow slot for which the Parliament is meeting so that we can start classes from 2009,” the official said.
An ordinance needs parliamentary ratification within six months.
One of the above mentioned 15 universities will be in Orissa; Earlier the Orissa government recommended the Koraput area as the site of this university. As per the bill, available here, the one in Orissa will be called Central University of Orissa.
An earlier copy of the bill (before Goa University was taken out) is available here. There was last minute criticism of the bill and request to not promulgate it as an ordinance by the National Knowledge Commission. See news reports on this here and here. But the President promulgated the ordinance anyway.
4 comments January 18th, 2009