UGC allows Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation to start off-campus centre in Greater Hyderabad

NEW DELHI: The Central government, on the recommendation of the University Grants Commission (UGC) has allowed Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation, Vijayawada, Andhra pradesh to set up an off-campus centre at Bowrampet Village, Medchal Malkajgiri district, Greater Hyderabad from the academic session 2022-23. Centre declared the foundation as deemed-to-be university on May 6, 2019 and extended the deemed status till 2024 with certain conditions.

“In exercise of the powers conferred by Section 3 of the UGC Act, the central government, on the advice of UGC, do hereby permits Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation, Vijayawada, Andhra pradesh to start an off-campus centre at Bowrampet Village, Medchal Malkajgiri district, Greater Hyderabad from the academic year 2022-23,” said an official statement. UGC will review the off-campus centre after a period of five years.

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In order to run the off-campus centre, the deemed university will have to fulfill the conditions such as submission of legal undertaking for maintaining corpus fund of Rs 10 crore permanently, maintenance of teacher-student ratio, obtaining approval for starting courses, etc.

On Centre’s directions, the Ministry of Education issued a Letter of Intent (LoI) to the deemed university asking it to fulfill conditions including teacher-student ratio not to be less than 1:20, faculty not to be less than 25, minimum 500 students to be enrolled, built up area not to be less than 30 sqm per student, and at least three postgraduate departments with research programmes at the centre.

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The university had submitted a compliance report of these conditions and UGC conveyed to the ministry recommending it to grant permission to the university to start the centre.

On May 6, 2022, the deemed university had submitted an online application to UGC for starting the off-campus centre. “UGC examined the application through a standing committee that unanimously recommended for issuance of Letter of Intent (LoI) to Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation, Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh with certain conditions before starting of an off-campus centre at Bowrampet Village, Medchal Malkajgiri district, Greater Hyderabad,” the official statement further said.