The state government has set the ball rolling to carve out a new university from Bangalore University (BU). It has nominated University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE) principal K R Venugopal as special officer to oversee the setting up of the proposed Bangalore North University.
An official notification was issued on Monday evening to that effect by higher education undersecretary Prakashrao Kesarkar. As special officer, Venugopal’s primary responsibility will be to monitor the entire process of the creation of the proposed university, which will be named D V Gundappa Jnanavahini University.
“My immediate responsibility is to demarcate and find out which colleges will fall under the proposed university. I will submit my report to the government in a month,” Prof Venugopal told Express. He said he would step down from the post of principal and hand over the charge to distance education director B R Niranjan.
The creation of the new university is based on a report by the Karnataka State Higher Education Council, which suggested the move to ease the burden on the existing BU.
With its main campus in Hoskote, the new university will cover one taluk (North) of Bangalore Urban district, three taluks (Hoskote, Devanahalli and Doddaballapura) of Bangalore Rural district and Chikkaballapura and Kolar districts. The existing BU, with Jnanabharathi as its main campus, will cover Bangalore South, East and Anekal, along with Nelamangala taluk and Ramanagaram. “The new university will shift to Hoskote campus in five years, and will work out of Central College till then,” Prof Venugopal added. About 320 colleges, out of 650 colleges, affiliated to BU, could fall under the new university from next year.
As often is the case, a special officer goes on to become the Vice-Chancellor. “I will strive towards a corruption-free and research-oriented university that can be a model for others in the state,” he said.