40% seats in Maharashtra's private universities to be reserved for students from the state
The guidelines have also relaxed some of the norms for setting up and running self-financed universities, making it easier for private varsities to come up in the state
The state government, in a set of new guidelines issued on Saturday, has directed self-financed universities in the state to reserve 40% seats for students domiciled in Maharashtra.
The guidelines have also relaxed some of the norms for setting up and running self-financed universities, making it easier for private varsities to come up in the state.
The state has reduced the land required for private universities to 25 acres from 50 in rural areas, to 15 from 25 in tehsils or district headquarters, and to 10 from 15 in divisional headquarters.
The land required for the same in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region has remained the same, at 10 acres.
Under the new guidelines, all the assets of a university will be transferred to its management if the institute shuts down. Earlier, the state was empowered to take over these assets.
On the other hand, organisations that want to set up these institutes will now have to shell out ₹25 lakh during applications, compared to the current fee of ₹5 lakh.
Naresh Chandra, director, BK Birla College, Kalyan said the new guidelines are aimed at encouraging more organisations to set up private varsities in the state. "It is an attempt to give more freedom to educational institutes. While autonomous institutes are able to design their own curriculum, self-financed universities are also able to control their finances," he said.
The new rules have also included provisions to bring about transparency and government oversight with regard to the fee structure of such universities. The fee structure will now be decided by a varsity-level fee fixation committee.
This committee will include members of the varsities’ academic and management councils, retired judges, former vice-chancellors, chartered accountants and Padma Bhushan awardees.
As many as 13 private universities have come up in the state after the government enacted the Maharashtra Self-Financed Universities (Establishment and Regulation) Act in 2011. Letters of intent (LOIs) have been granted to five more organisations that have proposed to set up such institutes.
