UGC's tough norms for affiliation of colleges

Updated on: Wednesday, May 19, 2010

New Delhi: An aspiring college needs to have at least two acres of land and facilities in metro cities or five acres of area with adequate infrastructure and faculty in non-metros for getting affiliation from a university, according to a new regulation of UGC.
  
The UGC (Affiliation of Colleges by Universities) Regulation 2009, which has already come into force, stipulates stringent norms for grant of affiliation by universities to aspiring colleges. The regulations say that new institutions will have to get temporary affiliation after which it can be considered for permanent affiliation by a university.
  
"This is the first of its kind regulation for affiliation of colleges. The UGC had issued certain guidelines on affiliation in 2000-01. While the guidelines were more advisory in nature, the recently notified regulations are binding on institutions and the violations are punitive," a senior UGC official said.
  
For temporary affiliation, an institution needs to have administrative, academic and other buildings with sufficient accommodation to meet the immediate academic and other space requirements. An institutions needs to create and maintain corpus funds, varying from Rs 15 lakh to Rs 35 lakh depending on courses, to meet any exigencies.
  
The aspiring institution will apply for affiliation to a university, specifying its development plan for ten years and its faculty recruitment policy. The university will grant temporary affiliation only after conducting an inspection by an expert committee. The expert committee will examine the library, lab, classrooms, teacher- student ratio, academic excellence and recommend accordingly.
  
The university will grant permanent affiliation to those institutions which have minimum five years of temporary affiliations. Permanent affiliation of colleges will enable them to get assistance from the UGC. The university can withdraw affiliation from institutions for violation of the criteria. The UGC has asked the 41 central universities and 256 state universities to follow the new regulations with immediate effect.

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