In the Academic Council meeting held at the Senate Hall on Thursday, the Council passed the draft regulation prepared in relation to the introduction of Tulu courses in the varsity and its affiliated colleges. Though the University had earlier formed the draft regulation to introduce Tulu diploma courses under correspondence programme, a separate draft regulation has been formed now to introduce the courses under regular programme owing to the interest of affiliated colleges.

Informing the same at the Council meet, Prof T C Shivashankara Murthy said that course syllabus has been already prepared with the help of experts. The Syllabus Committee for framing the syllabus is headed by Mangalore University Kannada Department Chairman Dr Abhay Kumar.

The statute will be proposed in the Syndicate meet to be held next month and later it will be forwarded to the Governor for approval.

The draft regulation in relation to starting PG diploma courses in Biotechnology too was accepted in the Council meet.

ST/ST fund

Mangalore University has also received an added advantage this year with the State government earmarking Rs 1.45 crore special grant for the benefit of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students. Stating the same in the Council meeting, the Vice-Chancellor said that the grant which is usually given to the Universities in backward districts, has been given to Mangalore University this time, after a gap of 30 years. “The government has released half the amount, that is, Rs 50 lakh under SC scheme and Rs 22.5 lakh under ST scheme,” he said.

Permanent affiliation

In the matter pertaining to the renewal of affiliation of 53 colleges, the Council approved to offer permanent affiliation to 52 colleges that come under the varsity and rejected the affiliation of a government college.

The Council has approved the affiliation of 22 colleges on the condition of fulfilling few suggestions put forth by the University.

The affiliation was renewed of the 40 private and 12 government colleges.

The Council has also nodded the statute to start a chair on Ambigara Chowdaiah in the University. Presiding over the meeting, the VC said that the Government had granted Rs 50 lakh for the chair a long back, but the chair was not instituted so far. The chair will start working immediately after the varsity gets the green signal from the Governor, he said.

Reviewing the annual meet, the VC said that the University has received Rs 19.70 crore grant for taking up 65 researches. As many as 359 students are pursuing researches in different stream in the University and the varsity has awarded Ph.D degree to 67 theses in the last academic year.

Evaluation duty must

In the backdrop of several colleges failing to send permanent lecturers from their colleges for evaluation duty, the VC has warned of withholding the results of the colleges which fail to send their lecturers. Speaking at the Council meeting, the VC said that recently the University had received a list of three eligible lecturers for evaluation duty from a college which was false as the college had nearly 10 eligible senior lecturers. The colleges are playing game so as to avoid evaluation duty, which should not happen. “The results will be withheld of those colleges which break the norms,” he said.

IT exemption to donors

In a recent development, the Central Board of Direct Taxes has approved to grant income tax exemption up to 135 per cent for the donors who donate funds to the University for carrying out social science or statistical research. Owing to the request by the Jindal group which has agreed to donate Rs 20 crore to the varsity for establishing Institute of Business Management or Technology, the Ministry has approved tax exemption from Assessment year 2011-12 under clause III, sub-section 1 of the IT Act 1961, informed the VC.