Varsity bill passed in Assembly

The much awaited Xavier University Bill-2013 with provision of reserving 50 per cent seats for the students of Odisha, was passed in the State Assembly after a marathon debate in the house.
While getting nod of the house yesterday, Higher Education minister Badri Narayan Patra said the proposed private university would start functioning near Pipili in Puri over 35 acre land in two years. This is for the first time that a private university is having provision of reservation for Odisha students, he said.
Minister said that the university aims at providing a core campus comprising academic and non-academic infrastructure to cater needs of over 5000 students, over 400 teaching faculty members and 500 non-teaching staff to be recruited in phased manner.

The university will offer academic programs like Engineering & Technology, Banking & Financial Services and Humanities, Patra said.
So far the Odisha Assembly has cleared five private university. Earlier Sri Sri Ravi Shankar University, Vedanta University, ICFAI University and Centurion University of Technology & Management have got the nod of the assembly.
Minister said as the university aims at providing quality education merit for admission in the university will be determined on the basis of marks or grades obtained in the qualifying examination and achievements in co-curricular and extra-curricular activities and entrance test.
He said ST, SC and girls students will get preferences in admission to various courses of the university.

The university will implement a scheme for providing concession in fees for the students of SC, ST, Socially and Educationally Backward Class( SEBC) and Economically Weaker (EW) sections.