KEA offices in Kalaburagi, Dharwad soon, says minister

The Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) will open two regional offices at Kalaburagi and Dharwad this year, Minister for Higher Education R V Deshpande said here on Saturday.

He was speaking to reporters at the release of the report, ‘Higher Education Department: Reaching New Highs’. KEA also plans to establish offices in the different  revenue divisions. While the Kalaburagi centre will cater to Kalaburagi revenue division, the Dharwad office would cover Belagavi division.

“We have identified the land needed” he said. The report mentions that action has already been initiated for the establishment of the Kalaburagi office with the procurement of a “site measuring 41,556 sq ft” to benefit students, especially those in Hyderabad-Karnataka region.

Work to identify suitable land for similar regional offices in Mysuru and Bengaluru regions is on.  

The higher education department is also looking at starting three new government engineering colleges at Challakere (Chitradurga), Naragund (Gadag) and Talkal (Koppal).
The report stated that while Koppal had no engineering college, Chitradurga had only one private engineering college and Gadag had three private engineering colleges. The move is in deference to the recommendations of the Nanjundappa Committee recommendation to remove regional imbalance. The responsibility of setting up these new institutions has been assigned to Visvesvaraya Technological University. “While the State Cabinet has approved the new colleges, we are waiting for All India Council for Technical Education nod,” said Deshpande.

On division of Bangalore University (BU), Deshpande said that a number of proposals ranging from “one plus one to one plus three had been considered” although the endeavour had begun in 2007 with the setting up of various committees. A cabinet sub-committee had recently decided to divide BU into four parts.

Regarding the new committee formed to look into the question of offering subsidised seats to poor and meritorious students in private engineering colleges, after the implementation of The Karnataka Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admission and Fixation of Fee) (Special Provisions) Act, 2006 this year, Deshpande said “discussion with all the stakeholders such as academicians, parents” would be held and the matter would be decided. A meeting of the committee will be held on February 18.