Orissa: New general state university needed

Merinews, Jan 22, 2009

UNESCO's report on higher education, economic growth using poverty and human development indicators shows that higher education enhances individual's earning and economic development as well. It also helps to broaden an individual's outlook..

A CURRENT in-depth cross national investigation that has also been lauded by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO) report on higher education, economic growth and development using poverty and human development indicators shows that:
higher education enhances the earnings of individuals and contributes to economic development;
higher education makes a significant contribution to reduction in absolute as well as relative poverty;
higher education is related to human development indicators which reflect other dimensions of human poverty, as it significantly reduces infant mortality and increases life expectancy.
On the other hand, our first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru always wanted the establishment of institutes of higher education in rural areas so that, the rural children need not to go to cities for higher or technical education. Taking note of this, Uttar Pradesh government has earlier proposed Nehru Gram Bharati Vishwavidyalaya at Dubawal, which has been inaugurated recently.

Recently, many states such as Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh etc in India have been establishing new universities to boost higher education in coming years at the regional level. Since the establishment of North Orissa and Fakir Mohan Universities, in northern part of the state, no new general state university has been established.

Orissa is a state of which a large part comes under rural area. Especially, KBK which consists of one-third of the state’s total area, comes under the rural belt. Demand of a state university in KBK region, since the establishment of North Orissa University, has not been met as yet.

Number of affiliated colleges in various general state universities as data collected are:

Utkal University (UU): 330
Sambalpur University (SU): 177
Berhampur University (BU): 91
North Orissa University (NOU): 69 (plus 12 technical colleges)
Fakir Mohan University (FMU): 63
Some of the technical colleges, listed under state universities as affiliated colleges, might already have been redistributed to Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT) by now or made unitary universities. Most of these technical colleges are from Utkal University and set up in the capital region of the state.

Districts affiliated with these state universities are as follows:

UU: Khordha, Puri, Nayagarh, Cuttack, Jagatsingpur, Kendrapada, Jajpur, Dhenkanal, Anugul.
SU: Sundergarh, Jharsuguda, Deogarh, Sambalpur, Bargarh, Balangir, Sonepur, Kalahandi, Nuapada, and Boudh.
BU: Ganjam, Gajpati, Kandhamal, Rayagada. Malkangir, Koraput and Nabarangpur.
NOU: Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar.
FMU: Balasore and Bhadark.
On regional basis, two separate state universities (North Orissa and Fakir Mohan) have already been established, separating from Utkal University in the past, but no separate university has been yet established from Sambalpur and Berhampur.

Considering inaccessibility, location wise, some universities are inconvenient to serve local districts, such as Malkangiri, Koraput and Nabarangpur under BU, Kalahandi, Nuapada and Boudh under SU, due to long distance and poor road connectivity, whereas it is marginally acceptable for most of the districts under UU, FMU and NOU.

Based on administration of number of affiliated colleges, there should be at least another two universities other than Utkal and Sambalpur Universities. For Orissa, on an average, 100 affiliated colleges in one university looks acceptable at this point of time similar to BU, NOU and FMU.

Model 1: Eight new state universities

One possibility is to establish one university each in Rourkela (Sundergarh), Keonjhargarh (Keonjhar), Anugul (Dhenkanal-Angul), Jajpur road/Kalinga Nagar (for undivided Cuttack dist), Bhawanipatna (Kalahandi-Nuapada), Balangir (Balangir-Sonepur), Phulbani (Boudh-Kandhamal) and Koraput (undivided Koraput dist) in future.

Model 2: Four new state universities

Second possibility is to establish four state universities based on number of affiliated colleges, inaccessibility and regional requirements, one in Kalahandi region (redistributing four districts from SU), second one in Koraput region (redistributing four districts from BU), third in Jajpur, Jagatsingpur, Kendrapada and Dhenkanal region and fourth one in Sundergarh (Rourkela) - Anugul-Deogarh region.

Model 3: One new state university

The last possibility, which looks economical and practical at this point, is to establish a state university in KBK taking colleges from each four affiliated districts from BU and SU based on region, inaccessibility and redistributing number of affiliated colleges as below.


SU will have colleges in Sundergarh, Sambalpur, Jharsuguda, Deogarh, Bargarh, Sonepur, and Anugul (all colleges redistributed from UU).

BU will have colleges in Ganjam, Gajpati, Kandhamal, Nayagarh (redistributed from UU) and Khordha district except capital region, Jatni and Khordha town (redistributed from UU).

UU will have colleges in capital region, Khordha town, Jatni, Puri, Cuttack, Kedrapada, Jagatsingpur and Dhenkanal.

FMU will have colleges in Balasore, Bhadrak and Jajpur (redistributed from UU).

NOU will have colleges in Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar.

Proposed new state university in KBK will have colleges in Malkangiri, Rayagada, Koraput, Nabarangpur, Kalahandi, Nuapada, Balangir and Boudh.

Location wise, Kalahandi is centrally located from all KBK districts and is well connected by state and national highway in KBK. Therefore, there should be an immediate consideration to establish a new general state university in KBK region, either in Kalahandi or Korput to boost education in rural part of the state as well as KBK region specially.