This financial year alone, Hardwar’s Gurukula Kangri Vishwavidyalayathat was given Rs5.4 crore under the non-plan category, besides Rs1.12 crore as development grant under the plan section.
Not only did the central government grant deemed university status to “ill-equipped” institutions, it also pampered them with huge financial support. The biggest beneficiary was Hardwar’s Gurukula Kangri Vishwavidyalaya that received Rs47 crore in the last five years from the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Interestingly, this financial year alone, the university was given Rs5.4 crore under the non-plan category, besides Rs1.12 crore as development grant under the plan section.
The institution had listed Uttarakhand education minister Madan Kaushik as president of its alumni association.
Another institution found “unfit” for the deemed status, Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth, Pune, too, got regular grants from UGC. Its chancellor is Union power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde.
Its vice-chancellor Deepak J Tilak’s son Rohit got a Congress ticket from Pune’s Kasba Peth constituency in last October’s assembly polls.
While Tilak Vidyapeeth got a total grant of Rs3.02 crore between financial years 2006 and 2010, it got Rs2.3 crore during the 10th plan.
This year, it got roughly Rs2 crore under the plan category. Tilak Vidyapeeth offers under-graduate and post-graduate courses in social sciences, health sciences, engineering, fine arts, journalism, ayurveda and modern and professional skills.
Udaipur’s Rajasthan Vidyapeeth, which too was found unfit, was given Rs3 crore during the 10th plan. It boasts of having senior Congress leader Karan Singh among its former chancellors.
“That we are unfit for the deemed status was a shock because UGC never found any problem with our institution,” registrar of the Gurukula university, which is over 100 years old, said.
In its affidavit to the Supreme Court, the human resource development (HRD) ministry had said that its review committee raised questions about the quality of education, research and infrastructure in the 44 “unfit” institutions.
The affidavit said these institutions “neither on past performance, nor on promise for the future, have the attributes to retain their status as deemed universities”.
The question that remains on what basis the government spent crores of rupees in the past on institutions that have been found unfit today.
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