UGC approves budget for new 15 Central Universities

new delhi: the university grant commission (ugc)  approved the budget for the newly created 15 central universities for the 2009-10 financial year, setting in motion the activities of the new institutions, which will offer various courses from the coming academic session. the vice chancellors of the 15 central universities met here for last two days to discuss their curricular activities, disciplines and budget. the ugc approved varying budgetary allocation for different universities, depending on their facilities, infrastructure and strength. the commission had earlier released rs one to rs two crore to each university to help them meet their requirements. it has decided to set up a standing committee to decide on the discipline and stream of programmes to be offered by these institutions. 'the committee will comprise vice chancellors of some of these universities. they will study the relevance and feasibility of the courses and disciplines to be started by them,' ugc chairman prof sukhadeo thorat said. the ugc also decided to sanction one professor, two associate professor and three assistant professors for each course to be offered by these universities. these institutions will offer under-graduate, post-graduate, m.phil and ph.d courses on different subjects from the coming session depending on the strength of students, thorat said. some of the universities are yet to get land from the state government. they include central university for orissa and gujarat. however, they have got temporary facilities to start functioning, thorat said. the 15 universities were created under the central universities bill 2009, which was passed by parliament in  february this year. the new central university has been created in the states of bihar, gujarat, haryana, himachal pradesh, jammu and kashmir, jharkhand, karnataka, kerala, orissa, punjab, rajasthan and tamil nadu. guru ghasidas vishwavidyalaya in chhattisgarh, harisingh gour vishwavidyalaya in sagar (madhya pradesh) and hemvati nandan bahuguna university in uttarakhand were upgraded into central universities through this bill.  vice chancellors to these universities were appointed in february also.