The Central Universities (Amendment) Bill, which paves the way for converting the National Rail and Transportation Institute into Gati Shakti Vishwavidyalaya, was passed in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.
Union minister for Skill Development and Education Dharmendra Pradhan said that the upgrading of the institute was important for creating the human resource for the development of railway infrastructure.
“Such a deemed university is being run by the Railways since 2018; it is a multi-sectoral, multimodal, multidimensional and multi-disciplinary institute. The time has now come to expand it,” said Pradhan.
Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that while the headquarters of the institute will be in Vadodara, there will be campuses across the country which will be developed as centres of excellence. “Transportation is a complex sector and globally all countries have such institutes,” Vaishnaw said.
He said that institutes such as these will stop the brain drain from India. “Students in India go abroad to study in sectors like telecom, startup, electronics, IT, etc, and many of them have come back to India to share their experience and skill by associating with Startup India,” Vaishnaw said.
BJP MP from Vadodara Ranjanaben Bhat, JDU’s Kaushalendra Kumar and Jammu & Kashmir National Conference Party’s Hasnain Masoodi were some of the legislators who spoke during the discussion prior to the Bill’s passage.
The National Rail and Transportation Institute was declared a deemed university under the University Grants Commission Act, 1956. After the Bill’s passage, the Institute, renamed to Gati Vishwavidyalaya, will be funded by the railway ministry.
Published 03 August 2022, 18:10 IST