The government Friday floated draft amendment regulations for ‘deemed-to-be’ universities, proposing to do away with the condition that an institute needs to be in existence for at least 20 years before it can apply for the tag.
The draft UGC (Institutions Deemed to be Universities) Regulations, 2022 also recommend making multi-disciplinary institutions, or a cluster of them, with a minimum of five departments eligible to apply for the deemed university status.
UGC chairperson Prof M Jagadesh Kumar said the commission felt that amendments to the existing guidelines are required to align them with the National Education Policy, 2020, which advocates doing away with the terms ‘deemed-to-be university’ or ‘affiliating university’ altogether.
Under the existing regulations, the 20-year condition is waived only in cases where applicants can establish that they will address the “strategic needs of the country and/or, engaged in preservation of cultural heritage”. Such applicants are granted deemed status under ‘De Novo status’.
Prof Kumar said the governance structure of deemed-to-be universities will be similar to that of central universities once the draft regulations are approved.
“The eligibility criteria will be NAAC ‘A’ grade with at least a 3.01 CGPA for three consecutive cycles or NBA accreditation for two third of eligible programmes for three,” he said.
The draft regulations also envisage replacing the term ‘De Novo’ with ‘Distinct institution’. A pitch has been made to simplify the process of sanctioning off-campus centres of deemed universities.
“The approval for off-campus centres will be granted by the UGC. Earlier this approval was given by the Ministry of Education. Deemed to be universities will also be eligible to start off-shore campus centres as per UGC regulations on the subject,” Prof Kumar said.
He added that in case of violations of the regulations, graded penalties have been introduced, which include warning through public notice, ban on expansions, closure of programmes or departments and withdrawal of deemed university status for repeated lapses.
The ‘deemed’ provision
The deemed provision was introduced to have more higher education institutions attain status of universities for all practical purposes because under the UGC Act, 1956, university status can be enjoyed only by those institutes which are established to state or union laws.
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