AGARTALA, August 14 (TIWN): The draft act for a separate state university would be placed for consideration of approval before the state legislative assembly as a Bill in its next session scheduled to start from August 29, official sources said today. A highly placed source in the Department for School Education today said that the next assembly session is slated to start from August 29.

The Business Advisory Committee (BAC) meeting isn’t scheduled as yet but the session is expected to have a number of strategic proposals including the bill for a separate state university and an English

medium college. School Education minister Tapan Chakraborty recently said in the sidelines of a media interaction that the department is currently engaged in preparing the bill for the separate state university.

He said that during the initial years, the state university wouldn’t be having any government degree colleges under it. The functional degree colleges would continue to operate under the Tripura (Central)
University for the time being. “We are hopeful of getting good response for the bill. If things go right, we will try to get the state university operational as soon as possible”, he said.

Asked if the government was looking at the next academic year for the state university’s launch, the minister said all possibilities were being actively considered. A source in the Department of Higher Education said that the new state university is likely to come up centering the Maharaja Bir Bikram (MBB) College campus in Agartala city. “We considered a separate state university since several issues unique for the state couldn’t be accommodate in the guidelines of the central university”, the source
said.

He added that the government was considering to start the State University in the MBB campus. “It might even be renamed as Maharaja Bir Bikram University as a sign of respect to the history and
tradition of the institute”, the source said. Most major academic courses would be kept in the syllabus for the state university.

No theology courses would kept in the syllabus as the UGC had reservations in approving theology courses in any university across the country. Jamia Millia Islamia University and Aligarh Muslim University are the only universities in the country to run theology courses with approval from the UGC, the source informed.