First Hurdle for much hyped Higher Education Task Force in Odisha: Odisha Government may not able to meet budget requirment for higher education

This (budget) was my first concern while proposing many Universities in Odisha by task force members. Indeed state Government could not establish a state University in Kalahandi as par with Central University at Koraput (800 core budget in 500 acres of land) instead of establishing two small technical colleges with a budget of 10 crore when Kalahandi, Koraput and Malkangiri have less than 2% enrollment in Higher Education (as per the report below).  This is largely due to unequal distribution between coastal Orissa (Balsore to Ganjam) and South Western Orissa (undivided Kalahandi Balangir Koraput and Kandhamal) by the Orissa state Government. If the primary mission of the task force is to guide central Government policies to implement in the state, then I do not understand how end results would have been different without having a task force at the state level, as the policies are already defined in the national level? The main objective of the task force in the state level should be concerning policies by the state Government. I still continue to suggest state Government should focus more in the undivided district without having any University and/or central Government institutions/University/research lab to bring effectiveness in the regional level, particularly in South Western Odisha, and build the solid infrastructure in all the present Government Colleges, at least one in each district. Looking at the present (worst) scenario of higher education in the state and in the district level, I anticipate this is still a challenging task for next 5 years for Orissa state Government as most of the major colleges in Western Orissa and KBK still lack sufficient number of regular teachers and infrastructure. I am also concerned that changing an autonomous college to University without allotting sufficient fund would not bring much change in real sense. 



Dharitri, Dec 29, 2009