No funding under RUSA with 30% faculty shortage; Jadavpur, Osmania, Andhra University to receive 100 Crore

NEW DELHI, MAY 29: With an aim to address the faculty shortage issue the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) Project Approval Board (PAB) has tightened the norms to avail funds for universities. The PAB has shortlisted over 30 universities to give money for enhancing quality and infrastructure.

The PAB under the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has approved Rs 4,889 crore, supporting 1012 higher education institutions. The RUSA PAB in its recent meeting has sanctioned an amount of Rs.1000 Crore to be given to 10 selected universities for enhancing their quality and excellence, under the scheme each university will receive Rs. 100 Crore each.

Universities having vacancies of 30 percent or above will not receive any fund until they submit confirmation of filling at least 70 percent posts.

Prakash Javadekar, Union Minister of HRD tweeted by saying, “According top priority to excellence, Rs 1000 crore has been approved for 10 universities at Rs 100 crore each to enhance their quality and excellence. Similarly, Rs 85 crore for 17 colleges have been approved at Rs 5 crore each to improve their quality and excellence.

The Minister further said that to give boost to research as five universities from Tamil Nadu alone have been selected and they will receive Rs 50 crore each. The State has been approved Rs 374 crore. Javadekar tweeted, “HE institutions in Karnataka to get a whopping Rs 467 crore support under RUSA. Two new univ & 2 New Model Degree Colleges to be created. 5 existing colleges funded for quality enhancement & 113 colleges to be funded for infrastructure needs.”

10 Universities selected for Enhancing Quality and Excellence

1. Jadavpur University
2. Alagappa University
3. Jammu University
4. Kurukshetra University
5. Savitribhai Phule University Pune,
6. Osmania, University, Hyderabad,
7. Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati
8. Andhra University, Visakhapatnam,
9. Utkal University
10. Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar

The other 21 Universities will receive Rs.20 crores each for improving their infrastructure, however, all such Universities whose faculty vacancies are more than 33%, shall be given only Letter of Intent, and will provide funds only when they confirm filling of 67% of the sanctioned faculty positions.

The maximum number of universities under this category are from West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh having three each; there are two universities each from Haryana, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra and Telangana; the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat and Jammu and Kashmir have one university selected to receive fund of Rs. 20 Crore for improving their infrastructure.

Autonomous College to University
The Board has also given its approval for creation of three new universities by upgrading the status of three autonomous colleges, the colleges are Government Science College, Bengaluru;
St. Joseph’s College, Bengaluru and Fergusson College, Pune.

All these institutions will receive Rs.55 crore each subject to them enacting a State Public University Act in three months and also submitting an action plan for the institutions.

New Model Colleges

to boost Gross Enrolment Ration in the educationally backward districts of the country termed as aspirational districts 70 Model Degree Colleges have been approved. The districts have been selected based on the criteria of backwardness, and low density of colleges and an amount of Rs. 840 Crores has been approved for this component. They are Jharkhand (13), Madhya Pradesh (8), Chhattisgarh (7), Odisha (6), five each in Rajasthan, Bihar and Assam, Jammu and Kashmir (3), two each in Telangana, Sikkim, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Karnataka, Arunachal Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh and one each in Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Nagaland.

Research, Innovation and Quality Improvement

As many as 16 Universities have been identified to receive an amount of Rs.50 crores each under the Research and Innovation component. There are five from Tamil Nadu, two each from Rajasthan, West Bengal and Kerala; there are one university each from the Karnataka, Haryana, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.