Odisha government asks varsities to complete affiliation by July

BHUBANESWAR: The Higher Education department has asked all public universities to de-affiliate colleges which were supposed to come under new universities set up in recent years, by July this year. Although many new universities including Rama Devi, Gangadhar Meher, Kalahandi, Khallikote and Rajendra universities, were set up in the last five to seven years under Section 32 of Odisha Universities Act-1989, these colleges are yet to be de-affiliated from their parent universities and brought under the fold of the new universities.

Despite this, some of the new varsities have recently asked colleges that were supposed to be affiliated to them to pay up affiliation fee or pledge money afresh for the purpose instead of getting the institutions transferred from the parent varsity.

Flagging this, the Higher Education department on Thursday said it is improper to ask the colleges to pay up to get re-affiliated to new universities when they were duly affiliated to their parent universities. The department asked the parent universities to immediately transfer the affiliation fee already paid by colleges, to the new affiliating universities.

Colleges which were temporarily affiliated by the parent universities shall continue to pay the temporary affiliation fees to the new university. The department asked the universities to complete the de-affiliation and re-affiliation processes by July 31 this year.