Maharashtra Public Universities' Act comes into force from today

MUMBAI: The Maharashtra Public Universities’ Act, 2016, came into force from Wednesday. The state’s higher and technical education department released an official gazette on Wednesday setting the act in motion. However, many of the important functions like making appointments to the top posts and conducting students’ elections can be executed only once the statutes are out by the end of this month.While officials such as the registrar, examination controller, who were appointed before, can continue to hold offices till the term for which they were appointed, the post of the director of Board of College and University Development became redundant from Wednesday.
The director BCUD is responsible for academic planning and development and research in colleges, he is also responsible for promoting collaboration between colleges and university and also between national and international organisations. “While other posts have some equivalent positions in the new act, the functions of the BCUD director have been divided between the deans of faculties and the pro-vice-chancellor in the new act. There is no provision for his continuity,” said an official.
A government official, who was in the committee to formulate the act, said that the statutes which will lay down the rules and regulations for the implementation of the act will be released in phases by March 31. “While in the earlier Act (1994) many of the statutes were designed by individual university, in the new one, to maintain uniformity, the state may prescribe a standard code,” said an official. Mumbai University’s registrar, M A Khan, said that they would start the process of appointments soon. “Whatever was there in the old act became null and void after the current act became operational today. The statutory officers will be appointed and the authorities will be constituted as per the new act in phases in the next six months,” said Khan. A state-level workshop has been organized on April 3 for all university officials.
State’s higher education minister Vinod Tawde said that the new act will be student centric and will increase the student’s participation in decision making. “The new public university act has been enforced from Wednesday which will help to make students more strengthen in this competitive era. The new Act will be student centric and at the same time it will boost the student’s participation at the University level decisions.”