To facilitate private universities in the state, the Punjab government is set to implement the Punjab Private Universities (Establishment and Regulation) Act shortly. A draft bill, framed by the department of higher education, has been circulated in the concerned departments seeking their comments.
Administrative secretary, higher education, Anjali Bhawra, said such a law would help maintain quality in the field of higher education.
For the record, an Act for private players to open universities exists in the states of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.
If the Act were to be implemented, a committee, comprising vice-chancellors of Panjab University, Chandigarh, Punjabi University, Patiala and Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, and headed by the chief secretary of Punjab, will scan all proposals for private universities. Administrative secretaries from the departments of finance, planning, technical and industrial education will also be members of the committee.
The committee will also evaluate the potential of the courses to be offered by the university. The committee will have to submit its report to the state government within a month. If it is satisfied, a letter of intent will be issued to the interested party to set up the university. As per the Act, the minimum land for a private university will be 35 acre and the sponsoring body will have to construct 10,000 square meter of the covered space for administrative purposes. The private university will be self-financed and won?t get any grant from the state government.
The idea of enacting such an Act in the Punjab originated when various private players submitted their proposal to set up universities. These include the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications (that showed interest in setting up an Information and Communication Technology University), Bharti Telecom (Airtel group), Lord Diljit Rana, Chitkara Group, Rayat and Bahra Group and the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, which came up with plans to open universities in different specialised streams.
It may be mentioned here that earlier the government had allowed the Lovely Professional University to set up its campus in the city of Jalandhar, home to some of the major educational institutions in the region.
