"All the prominent institutes will come up in Orissa during the 11th five-year plan period,"he told a seminar here.
Singh, who has often being criticised by the Orissa government for allegedly not sanctioning a tribal university for the state, said that the Indira Gandhi National Tribal University at Amarkantak was a teaching and affiliating university for facilitating and promoting avenues of higher education and research for the tribal population of the country.
While stressing on the vocational education, Singh said that the Centre had planned about 1,000 such institutions by the 11th five-year plan period.
" Orissa could get about 15 or 16 such centres,"he said.
Vocational training could help in eradicating unemployment problem to some extent in the country, he said.
Stating that there was change in the perception in the government level, the senior minister said"at one time we used to speak of a prospective, but now it i a post development focus.