Six institutions in Karnataka likely to get private universities tag

The state government, which had put on hold applications to establish new private universities, is all set to grant the status to six higher education institutions.

Six private university Bills are coming up before the Cabinet on Monday for approval, sources said.

The Karnataka State Higher Education Council had drafted separate Bills for the six proposals. These Bills are likely to be introduced in the ongoing session of the legislature.

Of the six newly proposed private universities, four are from Bengaluru and one each from Davangere and Ballari.

According to details available with DH, the six new private universities in the pipeline are: T John University (Bengaluru), Rajya Vokkaligara Sangha University (Bengaluru), Sapthagiri University (Bengaluru), Acharya University (Bengaluru), GM University (Davanagere) and Kishkinda University (Ballari).

This will take the number of private universities in Karnataka to 29 from the existing 23. Most of the existing private universities are in Bengaluru offering engineering and management education.

Earlier, the higher education department had said that it would not consider any new applications seeking private university status. “A new common Bill for all private universities is ready and was supposed to be placed in the ongoing winter session of the legislature. But, the new Bill will not be introduced this time. Hence, we’ve considered these applications,” a senior official from the Karnataka State Higher Education Council said.

Karnataka has 34 state-run universities of which 23 are conventional ones. The remaining are single discipline universities such as the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS), Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), Karnataka Law University and so on.

Once the six proposed Bills are passed and assented to by the Governor, private universities will outnumber the conventional state-run universities.