India, April 3 -- The Odisha assembly on Thursday passed the Odisha Universities (Amendment) Bill 2024, which seeks to give more autonomy to universities for recruitment of its faculty and help fill the large number of vacancies in the 15 state universities.

The bill was passed by the assembly at about 4:30am at the end of a marathon discussion of more than 12 hours. It replaced the Odisha Universities Amendment Act 2020 which was passed during the tenure of the previous Naveen Patnaik government but its implementation has been stayed by the Supreme Court since May 2022 following a petition by the University Grants Commission (UGC).

The 2020 law empowered the Odisha Public Service Commission to select the university faculty, stripping t...