Having taken on the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry for not according it varsity status in the last UPA government, Kapil Sibal, who now heads the ministry himself, is trying to realise the CSIR varsity plan he nurtured as Minister for Science & Technology in the last UPA.

Highly placed sources confirmed to The Indian Express that the CSIR - Advanced Institute of Scientific Training (AIST) is finally set to see the light of day with ample support from the HRD ministry. Sibal has already held a series of meetings with CSIR, UGC and the HRD Ministry officers to resolve the outstanding issues at the earliest.

At the meeting last week, the Minister brought the two sides together to sort out the differences. Sibal is understood to have told UGC that personally he thought this to be a good initiative that needed to be pushed immediately. But the minister also said he was willing to examine any valid objections, sources said.

Sibal is also understood to have told UGC to come up with possible solutions to get around the objections they have raised. UGC is learnt to have assured Sibal that it will get back to the ministry in about two weeks.

In the last UPA under former HRD minister Arjun Singh, UGC had opposed granting the deemed to be university status to the CSIR-AIST. Having waited for four years to get a deemed university status for its educational arm from UGC, CSIR had given up and instead approached the Prime Minister’s Office earlier this year to establish its own varsity independent of UGC and the HRD Ministry. Things, however, turned in their favour with former S&T minister Kapil Sibal bagging the HRD Ministry’s chair after the Lok Sabha polls.

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