Centre to withdraw deemed status to 44 universities run as family business
merisarkar news service
New Delhi, January 18, 2010
Supreme Court of India
Union Government on Monday informed the Supreme Court that these 44 deemed universities were being run as family fiefdoms rather than being run on any professional academic consideration.
However, the government said that in order to avoid spoiling the future of nearly two lakh students currently studying in these institutions, these universities would be given permission to revert back as affiliated colleges of their original universities.
These deemed universities are spread over 13 states across the country.
HRD Ministry said in its affidavit that most of the 44 erring deemed universities were offering post-graduate and undergraduate courses that were designed arbitrarily and with strange and cooked up names.
The Centre argued that these universities were taking admissions beyond their actual capacity.
The Center said that the government has accepted the recommendations made in this regard by the high powered PN Tandon committee and the Special Task Force set up to suggest measures to deal with this problem. The panel was created in June 2009.
File photo of a deemed university
The panel invited all 130 deemed-to-be universities for "face to face discussions" that took place during August-September 2009. Of the 130 invited, 126 attended the sessions, stated HRD Ministry in its affidavit.
The panel said 38 institutes justify with their achievements, performance and potential to continue as deemed universities while 44 were found to be "eficient in some aspects which need to be rectified over a three-year period suggested by the committee". And the rest 44 were recommended for closure.
Of the 44 universities recommended for closure - maximum 16 are located in Tamilnadu. And of them was sponsored by the Tamilnadu Government.
Of the rest 28 universities that will be closed, six are located in Karnataka and four in Uttar Pradesh. Haryana, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand have three universities each and Delhi, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Orissa and Pudduchery have one university each which will be closed.
The Review Committee came across several loop holes in the functioning of some of the institutions deemed to be universities. It found undesirable management architecture where families rather than professional academics controlled the functioning of institutions.
