Central varsities need more funds than tech, other institutes: Panel

NEW DELHI: Central universities have more students than technical and management institutes, and so they need more funds, a parliamentary standing committee on human resource development has suggested.

The panel also raised concerns over the reduced allocation of funds, saying it doesn’t match with the objectives of expansion and growth of higher education. “The Committee notes that the allocation for Central Universities is inadequate as compared to their infrastructure, faculty and number of students enrolled. The Committee further notes that Central Universities have a larger number of students enrolled in them as compared to the technical and management institute.

“Therefore, the department should make efforts for increase in the funding for the Central Universities at appropriate level, the Committee feels,” reads the report of the committee which was tabled in the Parliament on March 8.

There are more than 40 central universities under the University Grants Commission.

According to the report, central universities have been allocated ~6,455 crore in 2018-19 against last year’s ~6,512 crores which is a decrease of 0.95%.

Experts feel there should be equitable distribution as far as funding is concerned.

“This has been the case for the past 50 years or so and the general argument that is given is that IITs do lot more research and hence need greater support. I feel we should certainly support more universities and have equitable support system for all educational institutions.

At the same time I feel the current funding levels in education are very low itself. So that has to be looked into,” said Dheeraj Sanghi, professor of computer science at IIT Kanpur.