Bengaluru: Twenty world-class universities will be opened in the country, and public and private players will be given an equal opportunity to start these institutions, said minister for human resource development Prakash Javadekar during an interaction on “Reaching out to Indian Students Abroad and NRI, OCI students in India” at Pravasi Bharatiya Divas.

 “I want private universities to be among the top 10 in the world,” said Mr Javadekar, adding, “The government has released funds under the PM scholarship programme for 150 students, of which 50 are reserved for children of Indian parents residing in Gulf countries. The government will give Rs 2,000 for boys and Rs 2,250 for girls per month. But there are very few takers for the Gulf scholarship.”

The delegates at the conference also talked about incidents wherein several students were cheated by agents. Aniket, an NRI student, said, “I came back to India to study in Pune. I spent weeks at the police commissioner’s office for visa verification. It was a huge waste of time.”

Siddharth, an Indian student who went to study law in the UK, said, “It is easy for an Indian lawyer to work in the UK.  I went to study law and want to come back to work in India, but they don’t recognise my bachelor’s qualification.”

Mr Javadekar promised to look into these issues.

The national academic repository, which contains authenticated academic transcripts and qualifications of all NRI students including past records, has been launched.