New Delhi, Jan 9 (IANS) The government will issue an ordinance to create 12 new central universities, it was announced here Friday.”This is being done because the bill to create the universities could not be passed in parliament (in the session that concluded last month),” Home Minister P. Chidambaram said here Friday.

He was briefing reporters after a cabinet meeting presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The new universities will be established in Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, Chidambaram said.

In addition, the Dr. Harisingh Gour Vishwavidyalaya at Sagar in Madhya Pradesh, the Guru Ghasidas Vishwavidyalaya at Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh and the Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University at Srinagar in Uttarakhand would be converted into central universities, the minister said.

These institutions currently function as state universities.

“The proposed ordinance would contain all the provisions of the Central Universities Bill, 2008 pending in the Lok Sabha, with such changes as may be necessary to implement the accepted recommendations of the parliamentary standing committee, which include, among others, dropping of the conversion of Goa University into a central university,” Chidambaram said.

The conversion of Goa University was included in the bill on a specific request of the state government.

“However, the state government subsequently said the issue had been discussed by the various segments of the society in the state and their elected representatives, including members of parliament, and they had come to the conclusion that conversion of Goa University would not be in the interest of the state,” the minister pointed out.