Maharashtra government has established a four-member committee for setting up of state Ocean Applied Sciences University for the development of Kokan at Ratnagiri. The committee is headed by the MTDC’s Indian Institute of Scuba Diving chief general manager Dr Sarang Kulkarni and its members include CSIR National Institute of Oceanography representative Dr Narsinh Thakur, Pune College of Pharmacy representative Dr BB Chougule and Higher Education Director.
Maharashtra has a coastline of 720 km with sand beaches, mangroves and sea life. It is being used for fishing, tourism and sea transportation. The coastline also benefits people residing along.
However, local students do not get the scientific education and training to take advantage of the coastline for jobs and self-employment.
The higher and technical education department deputy secretary AM Bawiskar in a notification issued on Wednesday said the establishment of Maharashtra Ocean Applied Sciences University (MOASU) will help provide training and create necessary skill set to take advantage of the vast coastline to get jobs and start enterprises.
The committee will assess the requirement of land for the proposed university, suggest recurring and non-recurring expenses for the functioning of the university, decide the syllabus and intake capacity in the university. The committee will recommend the criteria for the faculty and also assess how it can be established as per the guidelines of the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Mumbai University’s former vice-chancellor Dr BL Mungekar had recently called for immediate amendment to the Maharashtra Animal and Fisheries Science University (MAFSU) Act, and the formation of a university in fisheries and ocean sciences, based on a report his committee had prepared in 2012.
The committee headed by him had made a strong case for the establishment of the Maharashtra University of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences in Konkan, as the region is blessed with a 720-km-long coast, and fisheries can be best studied in Konkan only. Studying ocean sciences is important too as there is no scientific study of cyclonic or oceanic activities in the sea.
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