bhubaneswar odisha should look for converting autonomous colleges into universities besides forming cluster varsities out of smaller colleges said professor tata institute of social sciences mumbai b venkatesh kumar here on friday he had prepared the draft for rashtriya ucchattar shiksha abhiyan rusa the centralsponsored flagship programme to overhaul higher education kumar said states have been given ample freedom under rusa to make plans that suit them odisha can explore converting institutions such as bjb college and khallikote college into universities using rusa funds similarly three to four colleges can be part of a cluster university elsewhere venkatesh told toi he was in bhubaneswar to interact with the state government officials at a workshop kumar said the government should plan model colleges in backward districts where gross enrolment ratio is less than 125 to address the issue of quality education for all the union government has set january 18 deadline for states except for those which went to polls recently to submit their plans under rusa government sources said colleges and universities in the state would be asked to submit their institutionallevel plan by december 10 after which the state plan would be compiled the centre has sanctioned rs 26 crore to odisha under rusa for preparatory steps such as formation of odisha state higher education council oshec the state government will bear the rest rs 14 crore kumar said rusa has a robust mechanism to track the spending pattern of the states for stringent monitoring at various levels the central government plans to spend rs 99000 crore in the higher education sector through rusa in the 12th and 13th plan by 2022 odisha is eligible for at least rs 120 crore for research and development during the current plan period government sources said odisha would notify the oshec a prerequisite for availing aid under rusa by early january it would be an autonomous body and execute the programme by coordinating with the nationallevel rusa mission authority the draft prepared by the higher education department will soon be sent to the cabinet for approval said officer incharge performance tracking cell of the higher education department mihir das rusa aims to increase gross enrolment ratio of students in higher education to 30 by 2022 currently it is 113 in the state