Draft Norms for Proposed World-class Institutes

The HRD Ministry in 2017 put out the draft regulations for the setting up of 20 world-class institutions and is seeking the public’s opinion. These institutions -10 each in the public and private sectors -will strive to become leading global centres of knowledge production.

The Draft Norms

• According to the draft regulations, stringent conditions have been placed for private players so that only serious parties can apply.
• Existing private deemed universities private universities can apply. Even fresh proposals can be made.
• However, the sponsoring organization shall be a ‘not for profit’ society or a public trust or company constituted under section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013.
• The sponsoring organization should have members whose total net worth is at least Rs 8,000 crore, with at least one member having a net worth of Rs 2,000 crore.
• The world-class institution (they will have deemed university status) should have a corpus of at least Rs 200 crore, a guaranteed pipeline for another Rs 500 crore and a credible plan that additional resources are available on demand, which should be no less than Rs 1,000 crore.
• In case a private university created by an Act of a state legislative assembly gets selected for the world-class institution tag, the state government will have to withdraw its status as a private university. Also, once the letter of intent has been given, it cannot be transferred.
• Even a change in the composition of the sponsoring organization has to be carried out with permission from the HRD ministry and the empowered committee.
• In case of the 10 public world-class institutions, financial assistance of up to Rs 500 crore would be provided to each institution in a span of five years from 201617 to 2020-21.