Cabinet approves financial autonomy to State Varsities; creation of 2 Cluster Universities

*2 major schemes for poor girls of J&K rolled out

Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Dec 2: In a major development, the State Cabinet today granted financial autonomy to the State Universities in order to ensure efficient utilization of resources and creation of two Cluster Universities—one each at Jammu and Srinagar. Moreover, the highest decision making body accorded sanction to the roll out of two major programmes for the poor girls— State Marriage Assistance and Hunnar Schemes.
The Cabinet also approved adoption of country-wide accepted Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode for funding infrastructure development and launch of Skill Development Mission to bridge the gap between market requirements and the available skills.
Official sources said that the proposal regarding grant of financial autonomy to the State Universities was moved by the Finance Department in order to ensure efficient utilization of resources as well as granting enough flexibility to the Universities for rationale utilization of available resources while ensuring accountability for the same.
After detailed deliberations on the proposal, the Cabinet, which was chaired by Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, accorded sanction to the proposal. “At present the allocation model is very rigid and inflexible leaving little autonomy for the institutions”, sources said, adding “now the Government will give an annual block grant to the University which will fund salary, pension, pensionary benefits of the sanctioned faculty and administrative staff. Along with this, there will be a provision for a maximum increase up to 10% every year”.
The Universities will be free to decide how to spend the allocated money based on its own internal allocation mechanism and according to what they intend to achieve. “The block grant will not be channelled directly from the Government to the University. Instead, these will go through a buffer body like Finance Committee, Syndicate and the University Council”, sources said, adding “in this way, the Universities will be insulated from the Governmental influence and their autonomy safeguarded”.
“In addition, the management of the financial issues has been left in the hands of the buffer body while the Government focuses on establishing broad guidelines and policy issues”, sources further elaborated, adding “the block grants received from the Government as well as internally and externally generated resources would form the total resource base of the Universities for a particular year. The Universities will prepare annual expenditure plan which will have to be approved by respective Finance Committees and the Councils”.
With this decision, the Universities would have the freedom to introduce tuition fees and determine their amount which is an important aspect of their financial autonomy, sources said, adding “the Universities have been allowed to retain all internally generated resources through paid courses, collection of fees and forms etc”. Moreover, the Universities have been allowed to generate and retain funding from sources other than the Government and to allocate them independently.
As far as accountability is concerned, sources said, “the Universities will have to review and put in place a robust accountability mechanism”. “There has to be a transparent system of assessing efficiency, performance, evaluation, quality assurance, accreditation and performance funding”, they stressed, adding “the decision of the Cabinet would go a long way in providing operational flexibility to the Universities”.
About the decision with regard to establishment of two Cluster Universities-one each at Jammu and Srinagar, sources said that Cabinet has given nod to the introduction of Bill in this regard in the forthcoming Budget Session of State Legislature along with the proposal for creation of 124 posts of different categories.
These Cluster Universities would be established under Centrally Sponsored Scheme -Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) for addressing the critical gaps in the spatial distribution of higher educational institutions across the State. These Universities will be established by pooling the resources of five existing colleges that have adequate academic, physical and technical infrastructural facilities and would eventually become constituent colleges of the newly created Universities.
The Cluster University in Jammu will comprise of GGM Science College, Govt MAM College, SPMR College of Commerce, Government College for Women, Gandhi Nagar and Government College of Education, Jammu while as Cluster University in Srinagar will comprise of AS College, SP College, Government Degree College Bemina, Government College for Women, MA Road and Government College of Education, Srinagar.
These Universities will be administered by an establishment comprising of the Chancellor, the Pro-Chancellor, the Vice-Chancellor, the Financial Advisor, the Educational Advisor, the Registrar and the Controller of Examinations, sources said.
“A large number of post-graduate, under-graduate and diploma courses in different subjects can be introduced in the Universities thus benefitting larger number of students to pursue higher studies in regular mode”, sources said, adding “the existing State Universities will also be benefited by reduction in responsibilities of managing admissions and examination of students enrolled in these Colleges”.
In this way, the Cluster Universities will improve the quality of State Universities and Colleges and enhance their capacities to become dynamic demand driven and quality conscious.
In another major decision, the Cabinet has accorded sanction to the adoption of the State sponsored social assistance scheme titled “State Marriage Assistance Scheme for Poor Girls”. “The scheme is meant for those unmarried identified girls of the State living Below Poverty Line, who may not find themselves in a position to marry due to financial constraints”, sources said.
“The decision vis-a-vis this scheme has been taken by the Government keeping in view the directions of the State High Court in a case titled Mohammad Amin Beigh Versus State and Others whereby the State was directed to take immediate steps for providing support to the poor girls of the State so as to enable them to live honourable life”, sources disclosed.
The norms for availing benefit under the scheme are that the prospective beneficiary girl should be above 18 years of age, should be an identified poor girl in the survey list available with the concerned DDCs and DSWOs. The eligible girl will receive one-time financial assistance of Rs 25000 and cost of 5gm of gold from the competent authority as provided in the scheme.
In yet another poor girls friendly decision, the Cabinet approved adoption of the scheme namely “Hunnar”, which is a skill development programme for the poor girls of the State living Below Poverty Line, who may not find themselves in a position to earn dignified livelihood.
This scheme will bring all schemes launched by different departments under one umbrella which have training and skill development component. The norms for availing benefit under the scheme are that the prospective beneficiary girl should be above 18 years of age, should not be a school going girl and should be an identified poor girl in the survey list available with the concerned DDCs and DSWOs.
The scheme constituents include skill development, micro enterprises, cooperative societies for the production, manufacturing of goods and marketing of products. The eligible identified poor girl will be imparted training through various existing schemes, extended by the identified departments, followed by subsidy, marketing and managerial support, once the venture will turn into cooperative society. The scheme will be operational in all districts across the State and Social Welfare Department will be the nodal department for implementation of the scheme.
In order to ensure that scarce resources don’t create any more impediments in the development and augmentation of the infrastructure in the State, the Cabinet put seal of approval on adoption of Public Private Partnership mode for funding infrastructure.
“The projects under PPP mode would boost the infrastructure development in the State by bringing the additional resources, technical expertise and efficiency in project implementation”, sources said, adding “in order to facilitate development of infrastructure under this mode, the Government will shortly create PPP Cell in the Finance Department, which would act as an Advisor or help in the transaction advisor”.
All the line departments would identify the projects to be undertaken in PPP Mode and PP Cell will provide initial guidance and appraisal, sources further said, adding “constitution of Skill Development Mission, which also received the approval of the Cabinet would bridge the gap between market requirements and the available skills”.

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