Visakhapatnam: Public universities in the state appear to be facing the threat of going out of business given the enthusiasm with which the government has been promoting the setting up of private universities, former state university officials said.While the state government claims that private universities will promote a competitive spirit among the varsities, the ground-level scenario hints at a different story.While old state varsities continue to grapple with funding crisis and staff crunch, several newly-established state varsities — established between 2006-2009 in accordance with the objective of setting up a university in every district — could not get NAAC accreditation or 12B status of the University Grants Commission, leading to them not getting central grants.After the state enacted the Private Universities (Establishment and Regulation) Act 2016, about 20 private universities submitted their investment portfolio as well as land requirements to the government. The latter has issued a Letter of Intent to a total of 12 private universities to set up their campuses in Andhra Pradesh.A few universities like VIT Amaravati, SRM University and Centurion University are already functioning. Other universities are in the process of procuring land and developing infrastructural facilities.While this may give the impression that the educational sector is booming, there are allegations that several bigwigs are set to grab prime land under the guise of setting up private universities.Meanwhile, the promotion of private universities has been criticised by several university executives. Stating that most of them are for-profit entities, V Bala Mohan Das, a former vice-chancellor of Acharya Nagarjuna University, said, “When it comes to faculty, the private universities have been recruiting the needed faculty, but faculty of Andhra University has come down to under 400 from 1,000.”“If the government doesn’t act fast on filling vacant posts and providing infrastructure to state varsities, they may soon go into oblivion,” said Prof Das.Moreover, the annual grant provided by the state government can barely meet the expenses towards the salaries of the employees and daily affairs of the state varsities. Even the ongoing recruitment process to fill about 1,385 faculty vacancies at the state universities has been delayed due to court cases and other reasons.H Lajipathi Rai, a former vice-chancellor of Dr BR Ambedkar University and a professor at Sri Krishnadevaraya University, suggested that a separate tribunal should be set up to regulate public universities. “This can expedite the resolution of legal issues pertaining to the universities, such as recruitment, admissions and others. Otherwise, legal tangles are taking up years before a university or the government takes a decision,” said Prof Rai.However, AU vice-chancellor G Nageswara Rao, has a different opinion on private universities. “A healthy competition will be created among these institutions that will lead to better infrastructure at the state universities. The Union and state governments have increased allocations to the education sector after realising that state universities are catering to higher educational needs of a majority of the students in the country, despite the existence of central universities and other premier institutions,” said Prof Rao.

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