New Delhi, May 6: The tussle between the Centre and the state government over the location of the Central University of Bihar (CUB) headed towards a solution today with both the parties agreeing to a twin campus arrangement, even as a conflict continued over the site of the headquarters.

At a crucial one-to-one meeting in New Delhi, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and Union human resource development (HRD) minister Kapil Sibal discussed the much vexed issue for an hour and agreed for twin campuses for CUB — one in Gaya and the other one in Motihari.

Officially, however, Nitish was not willing to divulge what transpired at the meeting. Asked about the details of the meeting, Nitish said on arrival in Patna: “It is not appropriate for me to divulge all the details of the meeting between us. We discussed many things and more discussions are in the offing.”

There are many reputed institution with multiple campuses, like University of California in the US, which has 11 campuses, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), which has two additional campuses apart from the main college at Aligarh, and Delhi University and University of Himachal Pradesh, which have an additional campus each apart from their main campus.

The HRD ministry and the Bihar government were at loggerheads for the past three years over finalising the campus for the CUB, which is functioning from BIT Patna campus on temporary basis.

While the Bihar government has been pushing for Motihari as the campus of the CUB, the HRD ministry says setting up the university in a small town would not be beneficial, as the institute may not attract good faculty. The ministry has identified 300 acres of defence land on the outskirts of Gaya district, which has both air and rail connectivity.

The issue has become a major flashpoint in the relations between the Centre and Bihar. Both Sibal and Nitish have exchanged strong letters disapproving each other’s stand in the recent past.

According to sources, both the leaders spoke over the phone last month and agreed to meet and iron out their differences over the location of the campus. They did not want to involve any official in their discussion and decided to hold the meeting away from media glare.

Sources close to Nitish said at the meeting over lunch, the chief minister told Sibal that the Centre had earlier agreed for Motihari site “in principle” after which the state government started the process of acquiring land. To reject CUB’s campus in Motihari would be an injustice to the people of the region, which is one most educationally backward areas of the country.

To this argument, Sibal suggested the idea of twin campus, which would cater to the need for higher education of both the regions of Gaya and Motihari.

Nitish readily accepted this idea of twin campus but pushed for locating the headquarters at Motihari. There was no agreement on whether the headquarters would be located in Motihari or Gaya.

Sources said that both the leaders agreed to work out the modalities for making the CUB functional from the twin campuses. Both the leaders are likely to meet again to sort out the issue of location of the headquarters.

In view of the distance of 270km between Gaya and Motihari, the proposed twin campuses will practically function as two institutions, a source said. Unlike Delhi University or Central University of Himachal Pradesh, where the twin campuses supplement each other in offering courses, each campus of CUB will have to offer courses in all the disciplines and may not share faculty of each other.

However, there will not be parallel decision-making bodies for the two campuses. There will be just one executive council and one academic council to decide on administrative and academic matters for both the campuses. The vice-chancellor will operate from the headquarters while a pro-vice-chancellor will take care of the other campus.

A source said that the Bihar government has not acquired land in Motihari yet. In that case, the headquarters may be situated in Gaya where the defence land is readily available. It may take at least two years for the state government to acquire land in Motihari, the source said.

Nitish had made a public announcement in Motihari in November 2008 during his Vikash Yatra that the CUB would be set up in Motihari.