In a severe indictment of the HRD Ministry and the UGC, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has found irregularities in conferment of deemed university status to four private institutions which were not fulfilling minimum eligibility criteria.
In its report on Autonomous Bodies tabled in Parliament today, CAG said the HRD ministry granted the "confirmed deemed university status" to Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India (ICFAI) in Hyderabad, Manav Rachana International University (MRIU) in Faridabad, Nehru Gram Bharati Vishwavidyalaya (NGBV) in Allahabad and Modi Institute of Education and Research (MIER) in Rajasthan against the recommendation of expert committees.
According to rules, the "confirmed deemed university status" are conferred to those institutions which have a standing for at least 10 years. Institutions offering courses in emerging areas with promises of excellence and at least five years of standing can be considered for provisional deemed university status under de-novo category.
In each case, the UGC sets up an expert committee which visits the institutions and recommends for grant of appropriate status.
The UGC then considers the recommendations and forwards them to the HRD Ministry for grant of the deemed university status.
However, the HRD Ministry conferred confirmed deemed university status to ICFAI in December 2008 despite the expert committee recommending provisional status, the report said. In addition, the AICTE had informed the UGC in January 2006 that ICFAI had been conducting technical programme without the approval of the council.
However, all these drawbacks were ignored by both the UGC and HRD Ministry in grant of the deemed status, the report said.
In case of MRIU, the ministry conferred the deemed university status in October 2008 despite the expert committee recommending for provisional status. The AICTE had given adverse report against this institute.
Similarly, NGBV and MIER were conferred full-fledged deemed university status against the recommendation of the expert committee for provisional status. When an expert committee recommends for provisional status, it shows that the institute does not meet the requirements for confirmed deemed university status, it said.
"Audit scrutiny of records during 2004-05 to 2008-09 reveals various instances of violation of established guidelines and specific recommendation of expert committees and the state government for the propose of declaring in institution as deemed to be university," it said. PTI
