Bengaluru: Former Higher Education Minister Basavaraj Rayareddy has written to Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy protesting the stalling of around 16 decisions of the Siddaramaiah government, including the drawing up of a comprehensive University Act. Taking a potshot at the present Higher Education Minister G T Deve Gowda in his letter, he advised him to get a degree through the Open University instead of lamenting his lack of education.
Blaming him for the department’s lack of initiative in following through the previous government’s initiatives, he recalled that he himself had opted for the higher education portfolio in the last administration. “But it has been thrust upon Mr Gowda. How can you expect someone who is not interested in his ministry to function effectively? This is why the government has not taken any initiatives in the education department,'' he claimed.
Listing the various stalled decisions, he noted that the government had not established the Dr B R Ambedkar School of Economics planned on the lines of the London School of Economics, even three months after coming to power and nor had it taken forward the decisions to start a new university at Raichur, an unitary university in Mandya and give cluster university status to the Maharani College.
Besides, nothing had been done about the 30 acres of land and Rs 30 crore sanctioned for the Gangubhai Hanagal University. “The Income Tax Tribunal had ordered the VTU to pay Rs 565 crore, including the Rs 441 crore seized by the department and Rs 125 crore in interest. But the state government is doing nothing to get the money,” Mr Rayareddy warned.
