NEW DELHI: After years of dilly-dallying, 'Chinmaya Vishwavidyapeeth' of Kerala's Ernakulam has been given the status of "deemed-to-be- university", according to a notification issued by the Union HRD Ministry.
According to a notification the Chinmaya Vishwa Vidyapeeth “shall be deemed to be a university with it's off-campus namely Chinmaya Naadu Bindu, Pune for the purpose under the UGC Act” provisionally for a period of five years under the denovo (under new) category.
The university will get a confirmed status of deemed-to-be- university after five years on the basis of performance report of UGC Expert Committees, as per the copy of the notification issued by the Union HRD Ministry.
The notification further states that Chinmaya Vishwavidyapeeth will not undertake to the franchise of higher education and to affiliate any colleges or institutions after achieving the status of the deemed to be a university.
However Chinmaya Vishwavidyapeeth will enjoy and exercise freedom and continue will all norms, procedures and authority concerning admissions, intake capacity of students, starting of new courses or programmes, renewal of approval of courses will continue to be in force. Institutions that are ‘deemed-to-be-university’ enjoy academic status and privileges of a university.
Even after being given in-principle approval by the University Grants Commission (UGC), the Union HRD Ministry had last year, after Prakash Javadekar took over as the Union HRD minister had turned down permission to the proposal by the spiritual and charitable organisation Chinmaya Mission.
The Chinmaya Vishwavidyapeeth wanted to start operating from the 2016-17 academic session with a single department. The HRD ministry, however, wanted to follow the norms as per the deemed university regulations of 2010 and the new regulations brought out last year, where an institute needed a minimum of five post graduate departments to be eligible for the deemed university status.
Since 2009, only two institutions both backed by the government have been conferred deemed-to-be university. Several institutions were blacklisted by the UGC as they were found lacking on academics and infrastructure.