Government Agrees on the Amendment of Nalanda University Bill, 2013

The government as well as Cabinet on 28 February 2014 approved to make few amendments to the Nalanda University (Amendment) Bill, 2013 as suggested by Parliament's standing committee on external affairs with an aim to make governance structure more organized for the proposed university located in Bihar.

For the same, several suggestions were made by the parliamentary standing committee on external affairs to be incorporated through amendment of the bill, such as making the governing board a seven-member body rather than 5, each one member to be nominated by 7 participating and non-participating countries of the East Asia Summit, the vice chancellor to perform also the role of member secretary of the governing board etc.

Furthermore, the other suggestions proposed by committee were inclusion of words such as "non-state, non-profit, self-governing international institution having academic freedom for attainment of these objectives".

The Amendment Bill, 2013, initially was designed to streamline the governance structure of the University and also to offer a monetary support as and when the University require for its establishment at par of a world class institution of high learning. The Bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha in August 2013.

The standing committees on external affairs had first inspected the Bill followed by presenting its Report to both Houses in Parliament on 17 December 2013.

As suggested in the statement, non-participating countries of the East Asia Summit will be invited to work together, with an objective to build the university such as an international centre of excellence.