UGC has 13 fresh applications for deemed university tag

Notwithstanding the Supreme Court seized of substandard institutions getting the status of deemed universities, the University Grants Commission has taken up 13 fresh applications for grant of the same status. Those lining up for the prestigious status include Indore's Prestige Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai's National Institute of Industrial Engineering, Pune's MAEER MIT World Peace University and Hyderabad's National Academy of Agricultural Research Management and Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology.

Among the applicants are even the institutions who unauthorisedly call themselves universities like PGP University, Namakkal, Raffles Millennium University and Dr Maggu's GSBA University of Greater Noida and Isabella Thoburn University, Lucknow. Three applications each are from Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, two each from Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, and one each from Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Chandigarh.

Academicians as also former UGC chairman ashpal are shocked at the commission proceeding with grant of the deemed university status to new institutions when its past grant of the tag to institutions of questionable quality are under the Supreme Court's scanner.

The UGC officials, however, justified reopening of the process of recognising the institutions with the prestigious status, asserting that the proposals are being processed as per the UGC (Institutions Deemed to be Universities) Regulations, 2010 that removed the past anomalies.

The commission has set up expert panels to inspect the facilities at these 13 campuses and suggest whether they deserve the deemed university tag. Grant of the deemed university status to dozens of institutions in the past came under severe criticism as undeserving in a review conducted by a Human Resources Development Ministry- appointed panel.

Mandated to examine all the 130 existing deemed universities, the review panel recommended cancellation of the status of 44 as they were "unworthy" of being called university and wanted the ministry to give three years to another 44 to correct their shortcomings in quality. The ministry accepted its report, but it could not strip the " unworthy" institutions of their status as some of them moved the Supreme Court.