140 private universities set up in India in last 5 years; most in Gujarat: MoE

NEW DELHI: A total of 140 private universities have been established across the country during the last five years with a maximum of them being set up in Gujarat followed by Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh, according to the Ministry of Education statistics.

According to data accessed by PTI, 28 private universities have been established in Gujarat during the last five years while 15 universities were set up in Maharashtra. Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka welcomed 14 and 10 universities respectively during the period. "Private University is established by an Act passed by the concerned state legislature and Notification issued by the concerned state government," a senior education ministry official said.

"The name of a private university is included in the list of universities by the University Grants Commission (UGC) as per Section 2(f) of the UGC Act, 1956, on receipt of the copies of the Act and notification from the university," he said. Such private universities are empowered to award general degree programmes without the specific approval of the UGC, the official said. "However, the approvals for running professional and medical programmes are given by the respective regulatory or statutory bodies and such programmes are governed by the norms of respective bodies such as All Indian Council for Technical Education, National Medical Commission, and Dental Council of India," he added.

Seven private universities were established in Chhattisgarh in the last five years while Jharkhand and Rajasthan saw the setting up of six universities each during the period. Five universities each were established in Bihar, Odisha, Uttarakhand and Telangana while four each were set up in Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Manipur, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Sikkim, and Uttar Pradesh.

"UGC regularly consults the institutions and universities and ensures that the norms are followed by them. GC has informed that no major violations of UGC have been reported against these institutions so far," the official said. At 40, the maximum number of private universities were established in the 2018-19 academic session, while 34 universities were established during the 2021-22 academic session during the last five years.