While central government is increasing its annual fund allocation to various state and central government instituted universities in the country, to the contrary a similar kind of allocation from state governments towards state-owned universities is decreasing, said Purandeswari, minister of state, HRD ministry at CII conference.

?There are 30 central universities and manifold state universities. The government of India allocation towards state and central universities had increased by 23 to 24%, on the contrary the funds outflow from the respective state government is dwindling. Many state promoted universities are languishing due to non-allocation of requisite funds by the respective local governments. The regional government should release the set apart funds so as to enable the varsities to deliver goods on a par with central varsities?, she said.

Reiterating that proliferation of central universities would not be a solution to solve the demand-supply scenario in the higher education sector, she added: ?To bridge the demand-supply gap in higher education, we need proactive participation of private sector in setting up colleges, universities and other specialty institutions. Government intervention would be in addressing the lopsided growth of the institution spread like addressing the issue of accessibility and affordability. With most of engineering colleges situated in urbanised localities, how to enable students from different demographic locations gain access. Secondly, extending loan programmes to assist students to finance the tuition fee and other fee costs at private run colleges.? Speaking on the issue of attracting private funding in higher education, Purandeswari said steps like granting of infrastructure status to educational sector and viability funding in some way would boost the investment flow in the growth of higher education.

Earlier S Gopalakrishnan, chairman, CII Southern Region and Managing Director, Infosys Technologies Ltd sounded a note of caution on experimenting with privatisation of higher education. He underscored how ineptly run engineering colleges and management schools crashed out of existence with disastrous consequence due to poor or no proper regulatory oversight. He called for setting up industry institute cluster by according of industry status to higher education.