patna the increasing government control over colleges and universities in bihar has not only been depriving the state of the traditional breeding ground for politicians but also causing considerable decline in charity and endowment which used to play a major role in the growth of higher education till the mid70s there were only 29 constituent colleges belonging to six universities in the state including jharkhand till 1975 government departments like education pwd phed and finance used to take care of the development of these colleges majority of the colleges private in nature were then nursed by charitable and benevolent families mostly zamindars big business houses and lawyers through managing committees universities were left free to frame academic policy and syllabus and to conduct examinations however in 1976 the then cm jagannath mishra made about 20 affiliated colleges as constituent units of different universities and thus increased their liabilities considerably the game of mass conversion started by mishra continued till 1986 increasing the number of constituent colleges to over 250 these conversions however did great harm to the breeding ground of political leaders that various managing committees governing bodies senates and syndicates had become in the state both in british raj days and during the first two decades of independence the early crops of political leaders in bihar were from among the freedom fighters as colleges were very few in this part of the country there were only 17 affiliated colleges in 1952 the nationalist elements in the educated mass joined legal practice as their natural profession they used to take interest in local bodies affairs besides pursuing their profession with the establishment of patna university in 1917 leaders started taking interest in the university affairs sir ganesh dutt singh who was the local self government minister from 1923 to 1933 used to take keen interest in patna universitys proper development he donated some of his valuable assets to the university for ensuring its allround development it was precisely through his efforts that the practice of having judges as vicechancellors was dispensed with and dr sachchidanand sinha became the first vc from outside judiciary dr sinha was succeeded by sir cpn singh whose subsequent pioneering work in developing the postgraduate teaching in the university was acclaimed by all he brought teachers of eminence from all over the country to man the newly opened departments sir cpn was succeeded by dr sarangdhar sinha and it was during his tenure that bihar university was established to manage affiliated colleges it was also during his period that the matriculation examination for secondary schools was taken away from patna university and handed over to the newly created bihar school examination board largescale conversion of private colleges into constituent units of different universities has increased the financial burden of the state government manifold except patna university which is relatively a very small university all others are having a large number of colleges under their jurisdiction as the government doles out only salary grants to the universities