Cabinet approves amendments to University Act

Bengaluru: The cabinet meeting held on Thursday has agreed to amend the 'Karnataka Universities Act-2000' with the aim of enabling the establishment of eight new universities.

Speaking to media persons, Higher Education Minister Dr CN Aswath Narayan said, 'From here, the establishment of Chamarajanagar, Haveri, Hassan, Kodagu, Koppal, Bagalkote, Bidar and Mandya universities will be done smoothly. I congratulate Chief Minister Basavaraja Bommai for this'.

Among the new universities, Chamarajanagar University will have 18, Hassan University 36, Haveri 40, Bidar 140, Kodagu 24, Koppal 40 and Bagalkote 71 colleges respectively. Along with these, first class colleges of that district will come under Mandya University, he explained.

Apart from Mandya University, the opening of 7 other universities was announced in this year's budget. A total of Rs 14 crores has already been provided for this at the rate of Rs 2 crores each. He explained that recently a decision was taken to convert Mandya Government College, which was a unified university, into a full-fledged university.

It is the government's decision that a district should have a university. Through this educational imbalance will be eliminated. Besides, the Minister said that behind this is the desire to provide quality education to the youth at their doorsteps. The finance and planning departments have agreed to the establishment of new universities. These will operate with less space, less staff and less cost, he said.