With the Central Universities (Amendment) Bill, 2014, introduced in August, the Lok Sabha held discussion for a bill to set up another central university in Bihar.
This new central university has been named after Mahatma Gandhi and would come up at Motihari in East Champaran as this was the place where he experimented with the idea of ‘Satyagrah’ during the ‘neel andolan’ (indigo movement) in 1917. This university would have its jurisdiction in north of river Ganges in Bihar.
The bill also proposes to rename the existing central university located in Gaya as ‘Central University of South Bihar’. Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh, who had made efforts for getting another central university in Bihar, said the central government’s decision to have the new university and to name it after Mahatma Gandhi is historic.
Also present during the discussion was Nagendra Kumar Pradhan (BJD) who drew attention to lack of faculty members at Odisha’s central university. Likewise, BJP member, Ashwani Kumar Choubey asked for the revival of Vikramshila University. S S Ahluwalia (BJP) urged the government to look at setting up a university in Darjeeling and Rajendra Agrawal (BJP) demanded that Meerut University should be given the status of a central university.
