University Body Releases Guidelines For Colleges To Receive Fitness Grants

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has released a set of rules called the UGC (Fitness of Colleges for Receiving Grants) Rules, 2024. These rules will apply to all the colleges that are included under Section 2(f) of the UGC Act, 1956. The rules will come into force on the date of their publication in the official gazette.

An official notification from the UGC said, "A college to which these rules apply will be declared to be fit to receive grants from the Central Government, the University Grants Commission (UGC), or any other organisation receiving funds from the central government."

In order to avail the grants, the college must fulfil the following conditions-
-The college and the affiliating university is included under Section 2(f) of the UGC Act,1956.
- The college has valid accreditation from National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC)
or
-National Board of Accreditation (NBA) accreditation for at least 60% of the total eligible programes for accreditation for the colleges offering more than three programmes. In case the number of programmes being offered is less than three, then each of the eligible programme must have been accredited.
or
- The colleges must be ranked in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) ranking in the respective category.

-The college has institute development plan to formulate its development proposals.

- The college/ sponsoring body has adequate financial resources of its own to meet out the operational requirements.

- The college charges from the students only the fees prescribed by the appropriate authority at the Central/State level/ University/ college or as per law in force. It does not charge any capitation fees or any unauthorised fees. 

-The college should submit an undertaking duly endorsed by the university to the effect that not less than 75% of the sanctioned/required as per relevant Regulatory Council(s) norms teaching posts are filled up at the time of submission of application, the teachers are paid as per UGC/State Government/ relevant Regulatory authority norms/Pay Scale, as applicable and the reservation policy is followed as per the policy of Central or the State Government.