9 Jan : A dozen new Central Universities will be set up in the country and three state universities would upgrade to that level through an Ordinance.This was decided at a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi on Friday.
The new central universities would be set up in Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, Home Minister P Chidambaram said reporters after the meeting on Friday.
The three universities to be taken over by the Centre and converted into central universities are Harisingh Gour Vishwavidyalaya in Madhya Pradesh, Guru Ghasidas Vishwavidyalaya in Chhattisgarh and Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University in Uttarakhand.
The conversion of these universities will be done through an Ordinance in view of the fact that the Central Universities Bill 2008 was pending in the Lok Sabha.
The conversion of Goa University into a Central University has been dropped on a request from the state government that it would not be in the interest of the state.
An official release said conversion of Goa University was included in the Bill on a specific request of the State government.But, the state government subsequently informed that the issue had been discussed at various levels, including MPs, and it came to the conclusion that conversion of Goa University "would not be in the interest of the state," the release said.
In view of the state government’s request for deletion of the relevant provisions from the Bill, the Parliamentary Committee recommended dropping of the conversion of Goa University, it added.