Maharashtra tables Bill to promote self financed varsities

The Maharashtra government, in a bid to promote higher education and encourage participation by the private sector, has tabled a Bill in the assembly for setting up self-financed universities in the state.

With this, it has joined states like Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat and Karnataka that have taken a slew of initiatives to promote establishment of private universities.

“Universities in the private sector will enable the state to bring about a paradigm shift through the development of domain-specific universities which will contribute to the development of the local community and the state as a whole. The existing educational institutes which have been recognised as centres of excellence in their field of study will get an opportunity to upgrade themselves to universities,” Higher and Technical Education Minister Rajesh Tope told Business Standard.

At the same time, he said promoting the self-financed universities would not put any financial burden on the state exchequer.

Every university would obtain accreditation from the National Assessment and Accreditating Council or the National Board of Accreditation within five years of being set up.

At present, hundreds of colleges are affiliated to a single state university which creates various administrative and governance issues. “A self-financed university will enable many of the reputed colleges to apply for university status. The private university will be necessarily a unitary university (non-affiliatory) and it will have an affirmative action and supportive plan,” Tope explained.

The privatisation of higher education would be undertaken in phases, the minister said. “In the first phase, the government will grant university status to colleges (affiliated) with a long experience and track record of excellence. Those who have applied for a deemed university status can also be considered. In the second phase, the government will promote single domain and multi domain specialised institutions of higher learning (autonomous) to become private universities,” he explained.

According to the Maharashtra Self Financed Universities (Establishment & Regulation) Bill, the sponsoring body would establish an endowment fund for the university with an amount of Rs 10 crore in case the university is situated in Mumbai or Mumbai suburban district, and Rs five crore if situated outside. Income from the endowment fund may be utilised for developing infrastructure for the university but would not be utilised to meet the recurring expenditure of the university.

The state government would constitute an inspection or scrutiny committee, comprising senior government officials and renowned academicians, once it receives the proposal for setting up a university.

The committee would submit its report within two months from the first meeting.

Deficiencies observed during the scrutiny, if any, would also be communicated to the sponsoring body for removal.

On the procedure of compliance, Tope said the sponsoring body within a maximum period of two years would submit to the state government an affidavit along with documents to the effect that all conditions referred to in the letter of intent have been fulfilled.

Following this, the inspection panel would scrutinise the compliance report.

After receiving satisfactory recommendations of the committee, the state government would table a separate Act for the specific university before the state legislature for its approval. The state legislature would then pass a separate Act for the establishment and incorporation of the particular private university, thereby enabling the government to issue a Gazette notification.

The said notification would then be sent to the University Grants Commission and the Ministry of Human Resource Development for information.