Hyderabad: The passage of the Telangana site Private Universities Bill three months ago has revived the hopes that the campus of Georgia Institute of Technology, a prominent US-based technology university, will come up in Hyderabad.
The university had signed an MoU to set up campus in Hyderabad in 2007. The then YSR government had allotted 250 acres in Shamshabad for the campus but the plan did not take off due to the delay in passage of the foreign universities Bill by the Centre and the private universities Bill in the state.
The government has now received a fresh proposal from the institute. Besides, Reliance and Adani, groups have also come forward to set up private universities in the city.
The higher education department is currently in the process of finalising implementation guidelines of the Private Universities Act.
“Several international and national universities are keen to set up their campuses in Hyderabad. We are in the process of finalising operational guidelines of the Private Universities Act. A committee comprising higher education officials will be set up to monitor these universities,” said Mr T. Papi Reddy, chairman, TS Council of Higher Education.
The committee will issue a notification inviting applications from prospective universities to set up their campuses in the state, he said. Officials said the aim was to make private universities functional from the 2019-20 academic year.
The state at present has deemed universities most of which are confined to offering engineering and management courses. The government wants private universities to offer innovative courses.
The government want to relax land requirement norm for setting up universities. Earlier, there was proposal to have land in hundreds of acres but in the new Private Universities Act, the land requirement would be just 10 acres.
This has been done to ease pressure on the land bank and to avoid placing a financial burden on institutions to purchase a large chunk of land due to higher prices in Hyderabad and the outskirts.
Existing groups running a chain of professional colleges will be allowed to convert into private universities provided they meet the stipulated norms.
