Mumbai: State Cabinet approves formation of cluster colleges

According to the revision in guidelines for self-financed colleges, approvals will be given to start courses such as skill development, sports, medicine, textiles, agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries development and others.

“This will help students to opt for their preferred courses and make the system inter-disciplinary,” said Tawde, adding, incorporating different faculties will enable group universities to impart skill development in the changing globalisation system, as well as increase the quality of education.

The approval to improve the guidelines for setting up of self-financed universities in the state has been given according to the recommendation of the report by the Bankirwar committee. Accordingly, non-agricultural colleges will be able to start various courses in their universities.

Ten acres for MMRDA area, 10 acres for regional headquarters such as Pune, Nashik, Nagpur and 25 acres of land in the rural areas have been fixed as the necessary criteria. In order to bring transparency in these universities, a fee fixation committee will be set up to fix the fees for various activities. In this committee, the Vice-Chancellor, the Chancellor, the members honoured by the nation, will be included, said Tawde.

state to have five-day budget session from February 25

The budget Session of the Maharashtra legislature, the last one to be held before the Lok Sabha polls, will be a five-day affair.  The state cabinet decided Thursday to postpone the start of the budget session from February 18 to February 25.  A vote-on-account will be presented on February 27, and the session will end on March 1. The cabinet on Thursday requested Governor C Vidyasagar Rao to postpone the commencement of the session.  A full-fledged budget will be presented during the monsoon session of the state’s legislature in July.