Mody institute in Rajasthan faces HRD ministry wrath

NEW DELHI: Once much sought after for the degree granting powers it brought with it besides national recognition, the deemed university status seems to be losing its sheen.

The Mody Institute of Education & Research in Rajasthan has sought to voluntarily surrender the much coveted deemed to be university status and a not-so amused human resource development (HRD) ministry is asking a number of questions.

That too, nearly three years after the institute made the request for surrender of the deemed university status and in fact went ahead and converted itself into a state private university under the Rajasthan government.

The Mody Institute of Education & Research in Sikar, Rajasthan, also happens to be one of the 44 deemed varsities found heavily deficient on quality parameters by the Tandon committee in 2009.

It was among the varsities recommended for blacklisting by the committee. Surrender of the deemed varsity status is quite unusual and the only other precedent cited is that of Manav Rachna International University in Haryana, that had sought withdrawal of the status in 2014, again one of the 44.

The institute, however, still retains the deemed university status. The question that the Prakash Javadekar-led ministry is now asking is how did the deemed university convert itself into a state private university in 2013 without seeking the Centre’s approval.

While the University Grants Commission ( UGC) is learnt to have given a go-ahead to the institute for surrender of the deemed varsity status, the HRD ministry has raised a number questions about the interest of students who had enrolled themselves into the institute believing it was a deemed university, to now suddenly find its status changed.

The ministry has also raised questions about the corpus fund of the institute with change in status.

The institute completed the ‘switch-over process’ to become the Mody University of Science and Technology in September 2013.

On Novemebr 27, 2013, the institute had gone to the Supreme Court seeking surrender of the deemed university status and transfer of the students into the new University set up state legislation.

Dr Vinod Purohit, registrar of the institute, claimed that withdrawal of the deemed university status was a ‘regular feature’ and things were under process with the HRD ministry.