UGC to Decrease Grants of Universities for Delay in Information

A major portion of the grants given by UGC to the universities and colleges around the nation would be chunked down due to failure of these institutes to provide the requisite information needed to UGC. The universities and colleges who are not complying with the commission’s directives and are not submitting the requisite information may lose up to 25% of their annual grants.

The commission under the Furnishing of Information by Universities 2015 has powers to take strict actions against the universities that fail to submit required information to the Commission. 46 Central Universities, 318 state universities, 129 deemed universities and over 35000 colleges come under the purview of UGC.

All the institutes as ordered by the Commission need to update copies of rules and reports of college inspection and status of accreditation, total faculty and staff strength, teacher student ratio, minimum working days, number of days of actual teaching and a note on the minimum criteria along with detailed admission policy of the institute. The report submitted by the universities should also contain teaching and non-teaching staff ratio, position of vacancies and innovation in academics, research and management and status of off-campus centres.

There was no penalty or provision of punishment before imposed by the UGC to the universities and institutes not providing proper information in their annual reports. This led to many of the higher educational institutes to drag their feet on sharing information. After the recent provisions it is being said that this move would encroach upon the autonomy of the universities and its freedom. But on the other hand some feel this move would streamline the higher education sector.