No institution is keen on deemed varsity status

The concept of deemed universities appears to be doomed. After the January-2010 recommendation from the Union ministry of human resource development (MHRD) for the withdrawal of deemed university status granted to several institutions, not a single educational organisation in the state has come forward to stake claim for the tag.

Human resource development minister Kapil Sibal had announced in January that the Union government was planning to scrap the idea of deemed universities. Around the same time, the MHRD recommended withdrawal of the deemed status granted to many institutions.

After these developments, not a single institution in the state had applied for the requisite No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the state government for getting the deemed status.

Officials from the state department of higher education said that it had been a year since they received any application seeking NOC for deemed status.

“Earlier, we used to get at least five to six applications for NOCs every year. But this year, no applications have come,” said an official from the department’s university section.

M Madan Gopal, principal secretary in the department of higher education, said, “I took charge eight months ago. Since then no one has approached us asking for an NOC to get a deemed status.”

Meanwhile, the higher education department has written to the MHRD, saying that consent from the state government must be made mandatory before granting deemed status to any institution.

“The government’s stand is that, the MHRD should take the consent of the state while issuing deemed status to any educational institution in the state,” Gopal said.

“We actually wanted to apply for deemed status. But last year, the MHRD recommended the withdrawal of the deemed status granted to many institutions. The HRD minister himself said that they were planning to scrap the entire concept.

So, we decided to put our deemed university plans on the back burner,” said an official from an autonomous educational institution in Bangalore.

There are eight deemed universities in the state. The MHRD has recommended the withdrawal of deemed status from six of these institutions. However, the issue is still pending before the Supreme Court.

Institutions interested in getting deemed university status in the state are now keen on getting private university tag and are drawing encouragement from the state government’s liberal policy on the issue.

“We were planning to apply for deemed status, but we have now applied for private university status,” said an official from another institution.