Sunday, 03 SEPTEMBER 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
After years of deliberations and roadblocks, the State government has finally paved the way for an umbrella act for all the universities of the State. In fact there will be two separate acts which will cover all the 11 government universities and 22 private universities of the State respectively. The State cabinet in its meeting held on Friday gave its nod for the State universities bill- 2023. The bill will be tabled during the upcoming monsoon session of the State assembly. In the umbrella act the State government has made provision for 25 per cent reservation for the students of Uttarakhand in the private universities of the State. In what can be termed a relief to the private universities, the new law gives them freedom to determine their fees. However they will have to follow a transparent process in determination of the fee. Similarly the process of granting affiliation by the government universities has also been changed in the new system. As of now the universities had to send the letters of affiliation to the governor who is the chancellor of the universities. The affiliation was given after the approval of the governor. Under the new rule the universities have been given the authority of granting affiliations to the colleges. After the implementation of the provisions of the umbrella act, the retirement age of vice chancellors of all the universities of the State will be 75 years.
At present different universities of the State are governed with their own acts. The proposed acts would be overriding all the existing acts under which the universities of the State are being governed. The objective of the umbrella act is to remove the inconsistencies which at present prevail in the governance of different universities and to ensure better education and better teachers.
The proposed acts would cover all universities and the colleges of the State and would replace the existing Uttar Pradesh University Act 1973, which is followed by Uttarakhand ever since its creation in the year 2000. The BJP government headed by the then chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat had tabled the bill for one uniform rule for all the universities t in the year 2020 but the governor had returned it. The government has now made necessary changes in the bill.
