The expert committee of University Grants Commission (UGC) has restored the deemed university status to Haridwar-based Gurukul Kangri Vishwavidyalaya, paving way for fresh grant which was stopped after UGC had passed an order to the contrary. The university had been given the status of deemed university in 1962. Now, the bar removed, it can call itself a deemed university, something for which its officials have been trying for a long time.
Notably, the university had been earlier given the ‘A’ grade category by National Assessment and Accreditation Council of India (NAAC) in 2002. However, in 2009, Tandon Committee, formed under the Union Ministry of Human Resource and Development, had assigned the ‘C’ grade category to it along with 41 other universities. In 2015, the status had been reassigned following a Supreme Court order issued on November19. In January 2016, a meeting by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development and University Grants Commission had been held and the notification based on the Supreme Court order had been sent to the university.
“The 16- member UGC team inspected our administrative section, teaching methodologies, infrastructural, educational and financial projects and also tested on quality parameters in January. They have found that the systems is running here as per the UGC norms,” said the vice- chancellor of the university Surendra Kumar.
He, further, said that the points raised by the Tandon Committee for placing the university in C grade earlier was that the university just dealt with formal education and not running as per the UGC norms. “However, the fact is that there are many modern education departments like Faculty of Management Studies and Environmental Science running here in sync with the UGC guidelines,” he said, adding that unlike many universities, the one here has the maximum number of PhD students enrolled in various streams.
The university officials sounded happy over decks being cleared again for the arrival of new grants for inclusion of more subjects and other developmental works which had been withheld following the decline in its status. “It would definitely bring new hope among those working in it,” said a staff member.
