TAKING COGNISANCE of a letter from the Minister of State for Technical and Higher Education Ravindra Waikar to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis asking for transparency in the functioning of self-financed private universities, the state cabinet on Thursday gave approval for improvements in the university guidelines for such colleges.
In his letter sent last month, Waikar had demanded to hold back permissions given to five self-financed private universities. He said that after receiving permissions, such universities started functioning arbitrarily with regard to course fees and admission form fees, among other issues. The five varsities are REST Self-finance University (Mumbai), DY Patil University (Talegaon), MIT University (Solapur), Ramdev Baba Self-Financed Private University (Nagpur), Vijaybhoomi University (Raigad).
The then Congress-NCP government had approved the “The Maharashtra Self Financed Universities (Establishment & Regulation) Bill” for the establishment of universities in the state on April 1, 2011. The Bill was, however, not accepted by the governor and was returned to the government. The bill has been approved Thursday by the state cabinet.