Policy soon for setting up 20 world-class varsities: Javadekar

Government would soon come out with a policy for setting up 20 world-class universities in the country, ten each in private and public sector, Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar said today.
"We have finalised guidelines and soon will implement the policy to set up 20 world class universities in India, ten from private and ten from public institutions," Javadekar said addressing the Youth Pravasi Bharatiya Divas 2017 here.
India had a legacy of having world-class universities like Vikramshila and Nalanda universities, which were razed down by invaders, for they understood that the power of the country lay in its education, Javadekar said.

"Earlier, we had the best universities - Nalanda, Takshashila and Vikramsila. In those days, almost all the ten world class universities were from India. This was destroyed by invaders because they knew the power of India lay in education," he said.
Javadekar also said the cabinet has approved the creation of the Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA) to give a major push for creation of high quality infrastructure in premier educational institutions.
The HEFA would be jointly promoted by an identified promoter and the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) with an authorised capital of Rs 2,000 crore.

"The Government equity would be Rs 1,000 crore," he added.

HEFA would leverage the equity to raise up to Rs 20,000 crore for funding projects for infrastructure and development of world class labs in professional institutions. He also said the government will be launching Global Research Interactive Network programme, which will provide scholarship and opportunity to students to work with reputed foreign laboratories and enjoy the liberty of returning to India to continue with research.
The Minister said the government was facilitating students to go abroad for a term and work in best of the laboratories.
Good education was key to any country's sustainable progress and the government was launching several initiatives to reverse the brain drain, he stressed.