File picture of students at a private college in Bhubaneswar

Bhubaneswar, Feb. 6: Six universities and 2,228 government and private colleges in the state will be covered under the Centre’s Rashtriya Ucchatar Shiksha Abhiyan scheme.

The state government yesterday put forward this proposal along with its recommendations at the State Education Secretaries’ meet, organised by the ministry of human resource development in Bhopal.

“We have recommended a change of funding pattern to 75:25 instead of 65:35 ratio suggested by the Centre,” an official of the state higher education department said.

The state government has also sought assistance from the Centre to fill up vacant posts in colleges. According to the scheme’s draft policy, the colleges have to fill up 80 per cent of their staff vacancy to get the funds. But, most of the colleges in the state are struggling with huge vacancies.

In its recommendation, the state has also asked to remove the clause from the scheme’s draft policy that seeks state governments to commit investment of 4 per cent of its Gross State Domestic Product for higher education. According to the policy, Odisha’s expenditure on higher education at present is below 0.5 per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product.

However, the state government has appreciated setting up of the mandatory State Higher Education Council to get funds under the scheme. “Presence of such a council would help better monitoring and utilisation of funds in the colleges. While most of the colleges in the state continue to get funds from the University Grants Commission, there is no centralised body to keep track of the fund utilisation,” the official said.