‘No decision on shifting UGC’s powers’.

The Centre on Monday said that no decision had been taken yet to shift the University Grants Commission’s grant-giving powers to the Ministry of Human Resource Development. It, however, agreed that many committees had suggested the separation of regulation and grants, and added that the proposed new system would be purely merit-based, online and objective.

This comes days after the Ministry put a draft Bill, to create a Higher Education Commission of India and repeal the UGC, in the public domain for suggestions. “The Ministry of HRD has clarified that no such final decision has yet been taken to shift the grant function to the Ministry, even though the recommendation about separating the Regulator and grant-giving entity has been made by many an expert committee in the past...,” said a release. “The Government is keen to ensure that the grant-giving process shall be purely merit-based, online, objective system that assures both transparency and efficiency with least human interface.”

It added: “Such IT systems are already operating in managing much bigger funding schemes like IMPRINT and RUSA flawlessly, and therefore can be put in place to manage the UGC schemes easily. This is to assure that if there is a successor system to the current grant-giving system of UGC, the same will be operated in the most unbiased and impartial manner.” (Source: The Hindu)