The Government has asked the Kashmir University to hold combined examination for fifth and sixth semester for under graduate courses in view of strong demand coming from the students.The decision was taken in a meeting chaired by Minister for Education Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari and attended by Principal Secretary Higher Education, Dr Asgar Samoon and other officers here today.It was informed that the university received the demand from the students for holding the exams for 5th and 6th semester together in June 2018 as they said that with this their time would be saved.It is pertinent to mention here that this academic batch started in July – August 2015 and shall be completed by July 2018.The University after consulting with the college principals passed a resolution and the government has agreed to the proposal.The meeting observed that these students need to be admitted to the post-graduate programmes in the academic year 2018-19 so that they have not to compete for admission to post-graduate courses with the students of the subsequent academic session (2016). This would make the total number of applicants for post-graduate programmes of the University approximately to 70000 whereas the total number of seats available in all programmes is not more than 4500.Meanwhile, the Minister reviewed the functioning of Kashmir University. The meeting was attended by V-C Kashmir University and other senior faculty.The Minister discussed issues related to infrastructure development, faculty and research work being done by the varsity, besides regulation of offsite campuses and colleges affiliated to it.The Minister called for the need of rationalizing the fee of BEd Colleges to bring it at par with that charged by their counterparts in Jammu.The Minister directed for immediate action in this regard terming it as a great grievance of the aspirants of Kashmir region.