Higher Education Minister Dr M C Sudhakar says “Setting one university for 40-50 colleges is of no use academically. Instead of opening such universities, we should give priority to research, filling up teaching and nonteaching posts vacant at the existing universities”.
He expressed his sadness over the BJP government’s sanctioning a minimum of seven new universities in Karnataka. Mr. Sudhara stated the lack of funds that is needed to provide for these newly sanctioned universities.
The previous BJP government declared funds of 2 crores each to postgraduate centers at Kodagu, Chamarajanagar, Hassan, Koppal, Haveri, Bidar, and Bagalkot as universities.
Mr. Sudhara assured that the Edu department has requested funds for these newly established universities in the state budget. He further stated that “But is it possible to develop universities having such inadequate funding? They even announced the University status to the University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering to develop it in line with the Indian Institute of Technology, but not allocated funds for that”.
Education Minister Karnataka, provided an example of the poor administrative condition of these new universities, “One of the vice-chancellors is demanding the department to buy or allocate funds for the university to buy a new car, as he is traveling in a rented one”.
