Rs 1,920 cr allocated for new varsities

16 states without central universities to be covered under plan.

The government has allocated Rs 1,920 crore for setting up 16 central universities in states which do not have one so far . The plan was announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently.

Once these universities are in place, the government plans to have two central universities in each state.

"The government has set aside Rs 1,920 crore for setting up 16 central universities in 16 states that lack such varsities till now," an official in the Ministry of Human Resource Development told Business Standard.

The allocation would take care of non-recurring costs like infrastructure and recurring costs like salaries and other yearly expenditures throughout the Eleventh Plan period.

"While Rs 60 crore is the non-recurring cost to set up a varsity, an yearly amount of Rs 12 crore would be made available for five years to take care of the recurring costs of a university," the source said.

While estimates point that setting up one full-fledged central university costs around Rs 400 crore, the ministry expects the amount of Rs 120 crore to take care of the initial expenses like the construction of buildings and staff salaries. Since the state governments are expected to provide the required land, the amount is being considered sufficient for now.

The government, which has shown its concern for quality of the state of higher education, has some larger goals in mind for university-level education.

The source said that once the 16 universities were in place, the government would go ahead to set up two central universities in every state. There are 20 central universities in the country at present.

Directions were also given by the prime minister to the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Planning Commission to jointly prepare a strategy to address the problem of abysmally low enrollment ratios at university level and at the same time improve access to and quality of higher education.

The UGC estimates that the enrollment rate at university-level by the end of the Tenth Plan, i.e. 2007, would be 10 per cent. The Eleventh Plan has set a target of 15 per cent to be achieved by 2011-12. The increase will require enrollment of about 84 lakh additional students during 2007-08 to 2011-12, according to the commission.