BITS Pilani recently got relived from the stress of not getting its off-campus centres – Goa and Hyderabad approved. Just recently the UGC has given the long-awaited approval to the two centres.
BITS was one of 10 universities that were given a notice by UGC to shut off campus institutes. All of this happened back in November 2015 when UGC alleged that the deemed to be Universities have built off campus centres and operating them without taking permission.
On the grounds of the standoff between BITS and UGC, the letter of intent given by BITS was held back.
Along with BITS, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) and Reliance Foundation’s proposed Jio Institute were also selected under the category of Private institution.
However, only MAHE and Jio Institute were given the LoI’s in July 2018.
The situation went from good to bad to ugly in all these years. Not to mention, along with the Universities, the students were also worried about the same.
When all of this happened and BITS realized that now the situation is getting out of hands, it knocked the doors of the Hon’ble Delhi High Court. In the hearings, BITS argued that they are getting threatened for no reason at all. It further added an important information about the foundation of the institutes. It was how the Goa and the Hyderabad campus were built in 2004 and 2008 respectively. It was argued that the institutes were built before the Deemed Universities Regulation.
After hearing both sides and the rapid claims by UGC of the BITS Goa and Hyderabad campus is illegal, the court came to a settling decision. The court instructed BITS to get get the institutes approved by the UGC if they want them to stay in existence. The court said that the institutes will have to formally apply to UGC for the approval of the Goa and the Hyderabad campus. This week, the waiting institutes got the approval.
An empowered expert committee was given the responsibility of finding 20 such institutes that could be given the title of ‘Institute of Eminence‘. Only 6 institutes were found eligible for the title. The selected institutes will now enjoy complete authority to set up their own curriculum, recruit foreign faculty and fix fees for the students.
