Planning and architecture bill introduced

New Delhi, Dec 3 (IANS) The government on Tuesday introduced a bill in the Lok Sabha to convert three Schools of Planning and Architecture into centres of excellence and enable them to confer degrees to students.

The School of Planning and Architecture Bill, 2014 was introduced by Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani.

Its passage will benefit students of SPA Bhopal and Vijayawada who are still awaiting their degrees. These two institutes were set up in 2008-09.

In order to confer degrees, an institute has to be made a deemed university by an act of parliament.

The bill also proposes to set up a council for the SPAs similar to IITs and NITs to advise the central government on policy matters in the field of architecture and planning.