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Ranchi, April 25: The law department has given the green light to a draft proposal for running engineering colleges in Chaibasa, Ramgarh and Dumka and a polytechnic in Silli, erasing fears of bureaucratic hassles delaying the proposed launch of the cradles this year.
The proposal for running the institutions on public-private partnership (PPP) basis will be now forwarded to the cabinet co-ordination department for approval.
With the next academic session set to begin in August, science and technology department officials will need to act fast for classes to begin this year at the four cradles, the buildings for which are in place ready.
With “skill development” figuring on top of his government’s priority list, chief minister Arjun Munda, who heads the law department, has directed his deputy Sudesh Mahto to speed up work for setting up the colleges.
“This year, we are going to give maximum focus on skill development. The new engineering colleges and polytechnics, whose buildings are ready for use, will become functional as soon as possible. Besides, we will extend all possible help to private players that are willing to set up medical colleges and nursing schools or even industrial training institutes,” Munda told The Telegraph.
The chief minister argued that since the appointment of principals and faculty members in engineering colleges and polytechnics was a time-consuming process, the government would prefer to rope in private companies that are known for their expertise in running centres of technical education.
Private players, who have expressed willingness to run the colleges, will be shortlisted after the cabinet nod to the proposal, which was approved by the law department a couple of days ago.
Enthused by the approval from his boss, Mahto, who also heads the science and technology department, maintained that the proposal would be forwarded for cabinet approval within a week.
He added that the proposal emphasised on offering maximum benefits to native students.
The science and technology department had begun working on a proposal to run the four institutes from December 3. Then science and technology minister Chandra Prakash Choudhary approved the proposal on February 1.
However, the proposal was forwarded to the law department only on March 1.
Science and technology officials had also complained that the law department had repeatedly returned the file to them with sundry queries.
Meanwhile, health minister Hemlal Murmu said the government would try to set up medical colleges in Daltonganj, Chaibasa, Dumka and Hazaribagh on its own, if it failed to receive serious proposals from private players.
He said that well-equipped government hospitals with accommodation capacity of 500 each were already available in these places, adding that setting up new medical colleges would not be a difficult task for the government.
“In the recent past, we received several ambitious proposals from companies from across the world. But a majority of them appear to be more interested in grabbing land and are non-committal on what special facilities they will offer to local residents. I can’t keep my eyes and ears shut,” Murmu added.
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