Deemed failures: Failure of MHRD and Higher education Policy

The “deemed-to-be universities” case in the Supreme Court gets curiouser and curiouser.

 

REPORTS about the proceedings on two different petitions before the Supreme Court have made the future of deemed-to-be-universities in the country appear increasingly uncertain.

In one case, Viplav Sharma vs Union of India, initiated as a public interest litigation in 2006, the Supreme Court on January 25 accepted the plea of 44 deemed-to-be-universities to restrain the Central government from derecognising them on the basis of the report of the Professor P.M. Tandon Committee, set up to review their functioning, until the court heard them.

A Bench comprising Justices Dalveer Bhandari and A.K. Patnaik directed the affected universities to file their responses before March 8, the next date of hearing. Noting that the issue involved a vital public interest affecting students, the Bench asked the government to place before it the reports of the Tandon Committee and the task force. The court’s directions were in response to the Central government’s affidavit that it accepted these reports.

In another case, the Supreme Court on January 29 issued notice to the Centre and the University Grants Commission (UGC) on a writ petition requesting the court to declare illegal Section 3 of the UGC Act, 1956, which enables the executive to grant deemed university status to an educational institution. In his petition, consumer activist Jitendra Narayan Singh said Section 3 of the Act conferred wide and unguided power on the executive to recognise an institution as a deemed university and such action resulted in the commercialisation of the system of granting degrees.

In recent years, the power had been exercised by the executive authority arbitrarily to confer university status on institutions that “have no standards to be recognised as universities”. These institutions in turn indulge in conferring degrees for profit, he told the Bench comprising Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justices V.S. Sirpurkar and Deepak Verma.

“The innocent student, after having invested time, money and effort, receives a piece of paper as a degree which has no value or substance. The students ultimately find themselves being robbed of the value for their money paid for services offered by such deemed universities,” he alleged in his petition.

As the establishment of universities was held to be a legislative act, institutions could not be conferred deemed university status by the executive, the petitioner argued. Section 3 of the UGC Act, which confers the power on the Centre to notify deemed universities, amounted to delegation of an essential legislative function to the executive and this rendered Section 3 ultra vires of the Constitution, the petition claimed.

 

Students of Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, a deemed university, at Thandalam near Chennai, went on the rampage on January 19, a day after the Centre filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court saying that 44 such universities, including this one, would be derecognised.

The outcome of the second case will be watched with interest as it involves the judicial review of a legal provision that stood the test of time until allegations about its abuse began to surface in recent years. But it is clear to any observer that the outcome in the first case will have a bearing on the second case, even if the prayers of the two petitioners are different.

In the first case, the petitioner, Viplav Sharma, an advocate, sought a direction from the court to the government to confer the deemed-to-be-university status only on institutions providing quality training and certifications, producing highly rated research material, and having quality professionals with global acceptability. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, which initially opposed his petition, changed its stance after it returned to power following the 2009 general elections, and the assumption of office by Kapil Sibal as the new Human Resource Development Minister.

UGC review

On June 4, Sibal directed that all pending proposals for conferring deemed-to-be-university status on institutions that had applied for the same be held in abeyance until a thorough review of the functioning of the existing deemed-to-be-universities was undertaken. He also directed the UGC to review the functioning of all such universities and report within three months the deficiencies with respect to maintenance of standards, qualifications of the faculty and the quality of infrastructure. Sibal pointed out that the deemed-to-be-universities should have obtained the accreditation of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) or the National Board of Accreditation, (NBA), as the case may be, within a prescribed period. Therefore, he asked the UGC to specifically report as to what the status was about accreditation and also about the rectification of deficiencies as must have been pointed out by the UGC in its periodic inspections. He wanted the information on the above to be furnished for each of the 130 deemed-to-be-universities.

Although those three months were over long ago, it is not known whether the UGC has submitted its report to Sibal. Even in its affidavit to the Supreme Court in the Viplav Sharma matter, the Central government is silent on this report.

The NAAC (an autonomous body established by the UGC in 1994) has granted accreditation to 140 institutions. The State-wise list of these institutions, available on its website, shows that some of the 44 deemed but failed universities are indeed among them. They include the Gurukul Kangri Vishwavidyalaya, Haridwar; Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth, Pune; and the Janardan Rai Nagar Rajasthan Vidyapeeth, Udaipur. The number of institutions that had earned accreditation from the NBA (set up by the All India Council for Technical Education in 1994) is not available from its website.

The Human Resource Development Minister set up the Tandon Committee, in addition to this review by the UGC, to ascertain whether these universities were serving the purposes for which they were so declared, and whether they were complying with the conditions, if any, mentioned in the notification by the Central government in each case.

Only parts of Tandon Committee report revealed

In its affidavit, the Central government has chosen to reveal only parts of the Tandon Committee report. The committee comprised Prof. P.N. Tandon, formerly of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, and a former President of the Indian National Science Academy; Prof. Goverdhan Mehta, a former Director of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; Prof. Anandakrishnan, former Vice-Chancellor Anna Technical University and at present Chancellor of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur; and Prof. Mrinal Miri, former Vice-Chancellor of North Eastern Hill University, Shillong.

The committee invited all deemed-to-be-universities for presentations and face-to-face discussions in August and September 2009 in four sessions. A total of 126 institutions attended these sessions. The committee had sent questionnaires seeking all relevant information to these institutions well in advance.

On the basis of their responses, the committee submitted its report on October 20, 2009. Meanwhile, the UGC submitted reports to the government on 47 of these institutions, and the government made these reports available to the Tandon Committee.

In its affidavit, the Centre has revealed that the Tandon Committee found several aberrations in the functioning of these universities. The committee concluded that only 38 of these universities justified their continuation as “deemed universities”; 44 institutions were deficient in some aspects, which needed to be rectified over a three-year period; and, finally, 44 institutions neither on past performance nor on their promise for the future had the attributes to retain their status as deemed-to-be-universities. Sixteen of these 44 institutions are in Tamil Nadu.

The affidavit only revealed some general adverse comments of the Tandon Committee against the rogue institutions. Although all the 44 institutions whose deemed status was to be withdrawn were named in its annexure, the affidavit refrained from mentioning the specific grounds on which each of these invited derecognition.

Thus, the committee found “undesirable management architecture” where families rather than professional academics controlled the functioning of institutions. Several institutions were engaged in thoughtless introduction of unrelated programmes and proliferation of degrees beyond the mandate of the original terms of grant of deemed-to-be-university status. It also found very little evidence of noticeable efforts by some institutions in regard with emerging areas of knowledge.

With the notable exception of some publicly funded institutions, very few institutions could produce evidence of “quality” research in terms of publications in leading high-impact journals in respective fields.

Lack of commitment towards research and irresponsible exercise of power with regard to admission, intake capacity, programmes and fee structure were found to be other attributes of such institutions. Many of these, which were once colleges, increased their intake capacity disproportionately and in some cases exponentially in relation to the qualified faculty strength and other academic infrastructure.

In several institutions, undergraduate and postgraduate programmes had been fragmented with concocted nomenclatures. Several institutions have prescribed fee structures considerably higher than those recommended by the official fee structure committees.

The Tandon Committee members also became members of the task force constituted by the Centre on November 16, 2009, to prepare an action plan to safeguard the interests of students enrolled in institutions whose deemed-to-be-university status was proposed to be revoked in the public interest. The task force recommended that all pre-existing colleges not found suitable for the status of deemed-to-be-university should revert to the status quo ante as an affiliated college of the State university so that students would be able to complete their ongoing courses and obtain degrees from the affiliating university.

Where an institution is unable to obtain affiliation, it suggested that every effort should be made to facilitate migration or re-enrolment of students to equivalent or similar courses in other institutions.

The affidavit estimated the total number of students enrolled in these 44 institutions to be 1,19,363 at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, in addition to 2,124 students pursuing research in M.Phil and PhD programmes, and an estimated 74,808 students pursuing Distance Education programmes. These 44 universities are spread over 13 States, and they could be affiliated to 28 existing State universities, it said.

The task force made it clear that the entire cost of migration and rehabilitation of affected students should be at the expense of the managements of the failed institutions and must come from the corpus fund that was required to be maintained in respect of each under UGC guidelines.

The Supreme Court’s intervention might have tied the hands of the Centre with regard to derecognising the 44 deemed-to-be universities that the Tandon Committee has found to be unworthy of deemed status. But the Centre has to blame itself for its hasty announcement in its affidavit that it accepted the reports of the Tandon Committee and the task force. The announcement led to widespread concern and unrest among the students of these universities. The right course for the Centre would have been to place these reports in the public domain, invite public response, and then take a decision.

Deemed University status under MHRD lens

New Delhi: After reviewing the functioning of 130 deemed universities, undergoing scrutiny for the past four months, the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has taken a strict stance and has declared that many of theseinstitutions mar the status of being a "University".

"These varsities have been functioning like private limited family-run companies," said an official from the HRD Ministry.

After a thorough analysis, HRD ministry's review committee pointed out institution-wise irregularities. The final decision on these institutions, however, rests with HRD minister Mr. Kapil Sibal.

"Our work is to provide the facts sans mutation. We do not recommend action but have just highlighted some flaws that the University Grants Commission's (UGC) review report did not state," said a source.

The deemed universities, however, are already prepared with their counter remarks to the ministry's report on the basis of the clean chit they received from the UGC panel.

They are ready to face any opposition in the future upon the basis of the law, which states that a deemed status to a university is given by the ministry on UGC's recommendation only.

According to sources, precipitating UGC's stance is a strategy by a section in the ministry to divert the attention from the equation they once enjoyed together while giving the deemed status.

"The biggest blunder in the case of private deemed universities is the way in which they have established study centres all over India", says the report.

"Deemed universities of South with their study centres in North (mainly Delhi andUttar Pradesh) have many students being trained by irregular faculty. Distance education is no more an effort to bring knowledge to your home but has now outgrown into a business endeavor of minting money. All this is due to the glaring loopholes in the guideline laid down by the UGC, which flouts the parameters," said an official.

The abysmal condition in which the deemed universities in South India and UP are, do not accredit the status of being called a university, the report added.

According to an official, "The administrative and fee structures are not at all in tandem with each other. It is on this aspect that the report focuses its attention and brings out the evident irregularities."

The report draws attention upon numerous instances where non-family members were introduced as vice-chancellors, just a few days prior to making a presentation before the committee. As a matter of chance, when the committee asked them about the preceding VC, random names of promoter's relatives came out.

"It was a normal course where the family members made presentations in lieu of theuniversities," said an official.

SCOPUS, being the largest abstract and citation database of research literature and quality web sources, does not include such private deemed varsities, which shows their shoddy research output.

An official during the presentations said that many institutions do not even know about SCOPUS.

Infact, many of the government-run deemed varsities lack the transparency to function with special emphasis on their administrative structure.

Classifying the deemed varsities into three groups, the report categorizes them based on their credibility.

The first, consisting of universities with exceptional facilities, the second, withinstitutions that meet all parameters and the last, found lacking in various aspects.

The report has even censured regulatory bodies like AICTE, UGC and NCTE charging them for their lack of coordination with the deemed varsities.

Higher Education : New Business for Minting Money in the name of Deemed Universities

 

Systemic flaws and corrupt practices result in the mushrooming of deemed and private universities, many of them with dubious credentials.

IF you have driven down the 6-km-long flyway that connects Delhi and Noida in Uttar Pradesh recently, you would have noticed after nearly every kilometre a new big hoarding advertising Sharda University, which calls itself a “true global university”. Given the controversy about the proliferation of “deemed universities”, one would immediately presume it to be one of those. Actually, it is not. But until late last year it was one of the 225 aspirants.

The common usage deemed universities refers to institutions that are “deemed-to-be universities” under Section 3 of the University Grants Commission Act of 1956.

Sharda University had sought deemed university status through a proposal (under the so-called de novocategory) made to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) in January 2008. This is still under the consideration of the University Grants Commission (UGC). In August 2008, the UGC asked the institution to correct certain deficiencies in its set-up to meet the norms. But with the new academic year approaching, its promoters seemed to be in a hurry.

The university got established in Noida under Act No.14 of 2009 of the U.P. State legislature. On June 8, 2009, the UGC recognised it as a State university under Section 2(f) of the UGC Act instead of as a deemed university under Section 3 of the Act. The hoardings promptly followed.

One would have also seen in recent months on television an advertisement for Lovely Professional University (LPU), Phagwara, which claims to be “India’s largest university” with a 600-acre (1 acre = 0.4 hectare) campus and offers foreign tours and laptops as prizes to students scoring more than 75 per cent. It was established under Act 25 of 2005 of the Punjab legislature and on November 1, 2006, the UGC granted it the label of a university under Section 2(f) of the UGC Act.

Lovely University was one of the 97 private institutions in Chhattisgarh that stood abolished following the Supreme Court order of 2004 in Prof. Yash Pal vs. the State of Chhattisgarh that led to the quashing of all the notifications issued under the Chhattisgarh Private Universities Act of 2002. It has now relocated itself as LPU in Punjab.

Similarly, several universities have found safe havens in States and got UGC recognition under Section 2(f). There are others that have relocated themselves but acquired deemed university status.

Clearly, there are systemic weaknesses in the UGC’s regulatory system, which failed to raise red flags (or perhaps ignored them) when institutions with imperfect credentials sought university status under Section 3 as deemed or under Section 2(f) as university proper.

Kapil Kumar, professor at the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi, and president of the Professors Forum of India, says that if Yash Pal had taken his case to its logical conclusion, the corrupt practices that underlie the establishment of such dubious universities would have unravelled.

The review by the UGC that Kapil Sibal ordered on June 4, soon after he took charge as Union Minister of Human Resource Development, is only of deemed universities. The scanner needs to be extended to many under the Section 2(f) category as well, though the deemed ones do constitute a larger basket.

ORIGIN OF THE CONCEPT

The concept of deemed universities was proposed by the Radhakrishnan Commission on University Education (1948-49). This proposal was included in the UGC Act to give university status to “institutions which for historical reasons or for any other circumstances are not universities and yet are doing work of a high standard in specialised academic field comparable to a university and that granting of a status of a university would enable them to further contribute to the cause of higher education which would mutually enrich the institution and the university system”.

In keeping with this spirit, the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) were the first institutions to be granted deemed university status in 1958. The Gurukul Kangri Vishwavidyalaya, Haridwar, the Gujarat Vidyapith, Ahmedabad, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, and the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, were among the early ones granted the status during the 1960s.

From 1956 until 1995, there were only 36 deemed universities. Their number rose to 103 by February 2008. Indeed, between March 1995 and March 2008 nearly 400 applications were filed seeking deemed university status. At the time of the freeze ordered by Kapil Sibal the total number of deemed universities stood at 127, of which the highest number, 29, is in Tamil Nadu. Maharashtra has 21 and Karnataka 15. Many of these universities are a far cry from the original concept.

Apparently, it was an intervention from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), whose attention was drawn to the large number of deemed universities approved under former HRD Minister Arjun Singh, that prompted Kapil Sibal’s initiative. Of the 127 deemed universities, 59 were approved during Arjun Singh’s ministership (May 2004-February 2009). That is, in four years nearly as many institutions got deemed university status as had been given in the five decades before that. Kapil Sibal, perhaps apprehensive that the UGC review may not be unbiased, has ordered an independent review.

UGC NOTIFICATION

In fact, in 2006, following the observations of the HRD Ministry’s Parliamentary Standing Committee on University and Higher Education in May that year, the UGC constituted a review committee comprising the Chairman of the UGC, the Chairman of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the Secretary of the Department of Secondary and Higher Education to examine various issues relating to deemed universities. But it ended up reiterating the existing guidelines. Worse still, the committee said a deemed university may drop the adjective and call itself university.

In accordance with this recommendation, the UGC issued a notification on September 13, 2006. It, however, mandated that deemed universities must distinguish themselves by writing below their names, in parentheses, ‘university established under Section 3 of the UGC Act’. This small print is, however, likely to be missed by students. This and the mushrooming of deemed universities effectively obliterated the distinction between the full-fledged universities and the deemed universities.

Kapil Kumar has challenged the UGC notification in the Delhi High Court through a public interest petition on the grounds that it violates Section 23 of the UGC Act, which prohibits the use of the word ‘university’ by any institution other than a university established by a Central, State or Provincial Act. He sought the annulment of the UGC’s executive order of September 2006. The court is scheduled to hear the petition on July 29. “My motive,” says Kapil Kumar, “is to expose the corruption and nepotism in the UGC and the Ministry.”

NEW GUIDELINES

S. MAHINSHA 

Prof Yash Pal (left), Chairman of the committee on higher education, with M. Anandakrishnan, former Vice-Chancellor of Anna University and member of the committee, and K.N. Panikkar (centre), Vice-Chairman of the Kerala State Higher Education Council, in Thiruvananthapuram on May 14.

The steep rise in the number of deemed universities started following the new guidelines that were issued in 2000 when Murli Manohar Joshi was the HRD Minister. These introduced a de novo category of deemed universities. Until then the key requirements for an institution to qualify for deemed university status were that the institution

(i) should generally be engaged in teaching programmes and research in chosen fields of specialisation which are innovative and of very high academic standards at the Master’s (or equivalent) and/or research levels;

(ii) should have academic programmes recognised by concerned statutory bodies if degrees or diplomas in professional subjects are offered;

(iii) should have been in existence for a period of 10 years at the time of making the proposal and demonstrated satisfactory track record; and

(iv) should have prescribed building and housing infrastructure.

There were 41 deemed universities then.

As per the 2000 guidelines, de novo institutions were those that had promise of excellence in “emerging areas” but did not yet fulfil the UGC guidelines. For such institutions the above general criteria would not apply. Under the de novo category, institutions were given deemed university status for five years subject to an annual performance review by a UGC-appointed committee.

It is learnt that this category was introduced by Murli Manohar Joshi so that the new Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIIT) established in Allahabad and Gwalior could become eligible for deemed university status. The two institutions had applied to the MHRD in April and May 1999 respectively for deemed university status and were granted it in August 2000 and March 2001. Now, information technology was not an emerging area in 2000. Joshi’s attempt, it would seem, had been to build his political constituency by diluting the criteria for deemed university status.

SCREENING COMMITTEE

But this set a precedent and the new category created an opportunity for manipulation and patronage at various levels within the Ministry and in the UGC, and they played havoc with the mechanism granting deemed university status.

For example, according to a UGC member, Arjun Singh, soon after assuming office, was keen to see that Jaypee Institute of Information Technology got deemed university status in the de novo category and this was granted in November 2004. That year, faced with the problem of handling a large number of proposals for deemed university status and to avoid extraneous pressures, the then UGC Chairman, Arun Nigavekar, set up a 12-member screening committee headed by S.K. Joshi, leading physicist and former Director-General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), to do in-house vetting of the proposals and avoid wastage of resources in sending an “expert committee” to inspect each and every institute.

The committee included P.N. Tandon, eminent neurosurgeon and former Director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS); M. Anandakrishnan, former Vice-Chancellor, Anna University; B.S. Sonde, a former scientist from the IISc and Vice-Chancellor of Goa University; T.N. Kapoor, former Vice-Chancellor of Punjab University; and representatives of all educational councils such as the Medical Council of India (MCI), the Dental Council and the AICTE.

Between November 2004 and April 2005, the screening committee considered 230 applications, including presentations by 113, which had been invited by the UGC. According to S.K. Joshi, many of the applicants did not show up, and most of the remaining proposals were substandard or did not meet the norms set by the guidelines. “With difficulty we could shortlist about 10 for recommending deemed university status,” he said.

REVIEW COMMITTE

But the manner in which the screening committee was going about its job was proving inconvenient to the powers that be. So, in February 2005 the Ministry constituted a new six-member review committee headed by H.P. Dikshit, former Chairperson of the AICTE and former Vice-Chancellor of IGNOU, to consider the representations of applicants whose proposals the screening committee had rejected, “in the interest of natural justice”. This, in itself, was odd because such appeals should, rightly, have been heard by the screening committee itself. Further, according to Joshi, the review committee’s initial terms were such that it would report directly to the UGC and not to his committee, and that the recommendations of the committee would be binding on the UGC. When the UGC Chairman objected to this, the condition was removed.

But the expectation of the Ministry/UGC that the review committee would be pliable to vested interests was belied. Of the rejected applicants, 25 had appealed to the UGC for reconsideration. When the Dikshit Committee invited them again to make presentations to it, many of them did not show up and of those who did and were short-listed none except L.N. Mittal Institute of Information Technology, Jaipur, made the grade for an inspection visit.

NEW PROCESS

Though they were not formally disbanded, both the committees were soon rendered defunct because the UGC instituted a new process that did away with any screening of proposals. The Chairman would appoint an inspection team to visit the applicant’s institute and submit a report. On the basis of the inspection report, the UGC recommended to the Ministry the grant of deemed university status and the Ministry then issued the notification.

The new process allowed many of the applicants who had been rejected by the screening committee and the review committee to make their bid once again.

Actually, nothing in the guidelines prevents an applicant from resubmitting a proposal. Take the case of Santosh University, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. It had originally made its proposal under the name of Santosh World Medical Academy even though the MCI had rejected its application for accreditation as a medical institute. However, it was allowed to make its presentation to the screening committee in February 2005, after which it was asked to rectify some significant deficiencies.

According to Tandon, within a couple of months the UGC was informed that the deficiencies had been corrected. Though Tandon had doubted that it could have been done so quickly, the UGC decided that an inspection team would verify the claims. The report of the team was positive and on that basis the UGC recommended deemed university status to it.

However, within a couple of days, a television channel visited the institute and broadcast a report showing the deficiencies; in fact, everything was locked. On Tandon’s suggestion another inspection team was sent to the institution and it confirmed the TV channel’s report.

Promptly Tandon asked the UGC to cancel the recommendation. Tandon’s term with the UGC ended in June 2006 and the screening and review committees, too, had become defunct by then. Santosh University was subsequently granted deemed university status on June 13, 2007.

Consider the case of an institute whose proposal the screening committee had rejected after its presentation. The institute resubmitted its proposal under the de novo category and, in the absence of any screening committee in 2006, the UGC Chairman appointed an inspection team that included a UGC member.

The inspection team’s report was positive. It turned out that while the text of the inspection report said the institution was yet to meet the norms, the final conclusion was positive. Tandon, still a UGC member and who knew the case, having rejected it earlier, raised objections. So, another inspection team was appointed, which included a UGC member. The inspection report was again positive. But when Tandon asked what emerging area the institute was engaged in, he was told that it was biotechnology. Asked which aspect of biotechnology, the UGC member on the inspection team said bioinformatics. When it was pointed out that bioinformatics could not be an emerging area, the matter was closed to avoid further embarrassment.

This happened on June 14, 2006, which was the last meeting Tandon attended as a UGC member. Now this institute has been granted deemed university status in the de novo category. Among the declared deemed universities there are several whose proposals were rejected by the screening committee. These include Sumandeep Vidyapeeth, Vadodara; Shiksha O Anusandhan, Bhubaneswar; Periyar Maniammai Institute of Science and Technology, Thanjavur; Hindustan Institute of Technology and Science, Padur (near Chennai); Vels Institute of Science and Technology, Pallavaram, Chennai; and Vel Tech Rangarajan Dr. Sakunthala R&D Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai.

Many other rejected ones are still under the UGC’s consideration. Some of those that had attracted negative reports of the inspection teams have managed to become deemed universities.

Curiously enough, in some notifications deemed university status has been given with conditions to be fulfilled by the institute. One would imagine that an applicant has to comply with all the requirements. How could the status be granted at all when some requirements were still unmet? Indeed, a public interest petition by Viplav Sharma against the UGC and the Ministry in 2006 highlighted some of these instances.

There are currently 225 proposals under the consideration of the UGC, of which 37 are from Tamil Nadu, 30 are from Uttar Pradesh, 24 are from Maharashtra, and 17 are from Karnataka. As many as 44 of these are in the de novo category.

In some cases the UGC itself asks the applicant to resubmit the proposal in the de novo category, as in the case of Mahatma Gandhi National Institute of Research and Social Action, Hyderabad. On September 19, 2008, eight years after the concept of de novo category was introduced, the UGC wrote to all the statutory bodies such as the MCI to identify emerging areas in their respective disciplines “so that the UGC can examine proposals received under de novo category with consistency”.

According to Tandon, during his term in the screening committee as well as in the UGC, there were limited objections from most UGC members to the deemed university approvals. He points out how he never came across any instance of annulling of the status following the mandatory reviews of de novodeemed universities. On the contrary, he said, an institute such as the National Brain Research Centre (NBRC), a front-ranking institute that was granted deemed university status in May 2002 and with which he has been associated, is constantly being reviewed. “There was one inspection just six to eight months ago,” he says.

As one would expect, the report “Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education in India” of the 22-member Yash Pal Committee, constituted by the MHRD on February 28, 2008, and released on June 24, 2009, has been highly critical of the unbridled and unregulated increase in deemed universities, particularly of the de novo kind, and has come down heavily on the entire mechanism of granting this status.

“In view of the considerable misuse of the provision for deemed university status,” says the report, “the granting of such status be put on hold till unambiguous and rational guidelines are evolved. Institutions wishing to get deemed university status should demonstrate special capabilities as was originally intended and should be rigorously evaluated to see if they fulfil the holistic and universal concept of university…. The institutions, which have somehow managed to secure such status should be given a period of three years to develop as a university and fulfil the prescribed accreditation norms, failing which the status given to them would be withdrawn.”

Interestingly, a committee headed by S.K. Joshi was constituted on February 15, 2005, to review the 2000 guidelines and evolve new “transparent” guidelines. This committee gave its recommendations but nothing came of it. Another set of revised guidelines were drafted by the UGC in December 2007, which were evolved by the expert committee constituted by the UGC Chairman and headed by K. Ramamurthy Naidu, UGC member.

But new guidelines are yet to be approved. The reason for that is not clear. As a result, the 2000 guidelines continue to apply, resulting in the recognition of dubious and mediocre institutions under thede novo category. Will the Yash Pal Committee Report or Kapil Sibal’s reviews help clear up the mess?