CHENNAI: The University of Madras continues to function without a full-fledged annual budget for 2026-27 as the statutory senate has not met for over 15 months. Instead, the university administration has been approving month-to-month interim budgets through the ‘Senate-in-Circulation’ mechanism to meet only salary, pension and other obligatory expenses.
As per provisional minutes of the Senate-in-Circulation dated June 30, 2026, the university has approved an interim budget of Rs 20.06 crore for June 2026. The amount includes Rs 15.77 crore towards salary and pension commitments, Rs 2.03 crore for common service charges, including electricity, guest lecturers and outsourced manpower, and Rs 2.26 crore towards administrative, examination, academic department and Institute of Distance Education (IDE) expenses.
This follows similar interim budgets approved for April (Rs 20.87 crore) and May (Rs 20.07 crore), as the administration continues to rely on temporary financial authorisations in the absence of a senate meeting.
Under the Madras University Act, the senate is required to meet twice every financial year, generally in October and March. However, the last functional senate meeting was held on March 29, 2025. The meeting scheduled for October 25, 2025 was cancelled, with no notification issued for the mandatory meeting in March 2026.
The absence of a formally approved annual budget has triggered concerns among faculty members. “The monthly interim allocations are sufficient only to meet unavoidable commitments such as salaries and pensions. They do not provide departments with financial clarity,” said a faculty member.
However, registrar of the university, Rita John said they were unable to conduct the senate meeting in October 2025 as one of the faculty members moved Madras High Court and got a stay order. “Later, due to the election code of conduct, March senate was not convened,” said John.