The University Grants Commission (UGC), the apex body for higher education, recently published a list of fake universities for benefitting students. According to UGC Act 1956, an institution can only be subjected as ‘university’ if it has been established by the Central/State/Provincial Act. Any University that does not abide by the mentioned rule is referred to Section 23 of the Act that prohibits it from using the term ‘university’. However, despite UGC’s vigorous regulations by the malpractices cell which keeps tab on these institutions, there has been a makeable growth of the same which has been listed by UGC. As per the report, eight of the listed 21 fake universities are in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi consists of six. West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh have one such fake university each. Hence, as unfortunate as it may be, UGC’s list of 21 unrecognized institutions wearing the mask of ‘University’ have been declared as fake and deterred from delivering any degrees further, which are –
- Maithili University, Darbhanga, Bihar
- Varanseya Sanskrit Vishwavidhyalaya, Delhi
- Commercial University Ltd., Delhi
- United Nations University, Delhi
- Vocational University, Delhi
- ADR – Central Juridical University, Delhi
- Indian Institution of Science and Engineering, Delhi
- Badagnavi Sarkar World Open Educational Society, Belgaum, Karnataka
- St. John’s University, Kishanattam, Kerala
- Kesarwani Vidyapith, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh
- Raja Arabic University, Nagpur, Maharashtra
- DDB Sanskrit University, Putur, Trichy, Tamil Nadu
- Indian Institute of Alternative Medicine, Kolkata, West Bengal
- Mahila Gram Vidyapith, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh
- Gandhi Hindi Vidyapith, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh
- National University of Electro Complex Homeopathy, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh
- Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose University, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh
- Uttar Pradesh Vishwavidhyalaya, Uttar Pradesh
- Maharana Pratap Shiksha Niketan Vidyalaya, Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh
- Indraprastha Shiksha Parishad, Noida-Phase II, Uttar Pradesh
- Gurukul Vishwavidhyalaya, Mathura, Uttar Pradesh
Here you can see the UGC Notice on Fake Universities : https://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/7932206_Fake-university-English.pdf
We witnessed a similar case back in May 2015 when an FIR was filed against Arindham Chaudhari, the founder of Indian Institute of Planning and Management, by UGC who accused the concerned of misleading and cheating its students by charging a huge amount for courses that were not even authorized by the UGC or the AICTE. This may be only one of the cases where the institution managed to maneuver the public through its commercial strategies but the UGC list exposes the brutality of the business around. These institutions have sought out every possible ways of targeting the vulnerability of students and their guardians by claiming their self-designed excellence and achievements.
On observing the trend it could be felt that the inability to meet the high cut-off and eligibility criteria by aspiring students in their desired Institute results in the emergence of dodgy claims by fraudulent businessmen who lure gullible students in falling into their traps. Be it the marketing strategies of businessmen or the convincing parade of professors of these Universities or even newspapers and other media outlets advertising for them – all of it has become a well-maintained racket that is not supposed to end with students’ awareness solely. Along with proper law and order in each state and a timely feedback of the report gathered of the establishments around the educational sector has to be provisioned for. While the HRD ministry has lately assured of the same, yet the Government has put in all the immediate efforts it could. As part of regulation, the HRD Ministry has introduced a portal called ‘Know Your College’ and also a mobile application that provide essential details of universities and colleges. These steps not only aim at helping students identify the fake universities but also enable direct interaction with the faculty and other officials of desired universities. Along with a redressal committee set up by the UGC under ‘Know Your College’, they also take the responsibility of taking stringent actions in favor of complaints.
With the rising graph of bogus institutions, one can now only hope that the government is successful in its endeavor to aware it’s public.
