Bhubaneswar: Several colleges in the state will shortly get an infrastructure boost.

Under the second phase of Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (Rusa) scheme, the state government has granted infrastructure funds to 20 colleges.

The higher education department asked the colleges on Tuesday to take preparatory activities for the same in the next 15 days.

Each of these colleges will receive an amount of Rs 2 crore that would be shared by the Centre and state in a 60:40 ratio. The project at the college level will be managed by two bodies - a governing body and a project monitoring unit.

Teaching staff would be nominated as Rusa co-ordinator for smooth implementation of the project at the institution level.

A separate bank account will be opened in favour of the institution that will be jointly operated by the principal and the Rusa co-ordinator.

"All infrastructure constructed under the scheme shall be barrier free and accessible to persons with disability," said state project director of Rusa Parameswaran B.

The grant will be provided for strengthening infrastructure facilities in the form of new construction, renovation and purchase of equipment.

As many as five colleges from Balasore have been included in the list and two each from Cuttack, Ganjam, Khurda and Dhenkanal are also included. The other colleges include one each at Angul, Balangir, Jagatsinghpur and Kendrapara. The list also includes three colleges in Jajpur.

A sequel to the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan, the Rusa is a flagship scheme launched by the Union ministry of human resource development in 2013.

The colleges had initially proposed their plans to their respective universities followed by an approval from the state government's higher education department.