Govt Plans To Transfer UVCE to VTU

Bangalore: The state government has announced its plans to transfer the 93-year-old University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE), Bangalore, and 60-year-old Davanagere-based University BDT College of Engineering to Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), Belgaum.

As per sources, these are the only two government-owned engineering colleges which are presently not affiliated to VTU. Moreover, it is anticipated that the fresh move by the higher education minister could ignite opposition from Bangalore University, which doesn't want to let go of its jewel-in-the-crown constituent college.

Higher Education Minister V S Acharya has said that VTU has been granting affiliation to all engineering colleges in the state. He said that they feel that by transferring the two colleges, all technical institutes will come under the purview of a single university.

Furthermore, the sources have also informed that, VTU, which has 186 affiliated colleges, does not have constituent undergraduate engineering colleges. Earlier this month, at a meeting of officials chaired by chief secretary S V Ranganath, it was decided to hand over UBDTCE to VTU. The college, which was earlier a constituent college of Kuvempu University (Shimoga), is now part of the newly set up Davanagere University. However, final decision on shifting UVCE is yet to be taken.