Nagpur: Nagpur University’s Board of Deans (BoD) led by pro vice-chancellor Pramod Yeole on Tuesday recommended disaffiliation of 58 colleges that failed to seek affiliation since academic year 2012-13.
Yeole said, “Several reminders and notices were sent to these colleges but they failed to respond in the last seven or eight years or even apply for continuation of affiliation.” Pro-VC added that the 58 were among 98 colleges where admissions to first-year courses were stopped at the beginning of this academic session.
Of the 98, 11 colleges applied for continuation of affiliation, two sought closure and one has moved the court. Rest of the 26 didn’t seek continuation of affiliation in 2017-18 as well as for 2018-19. “The 26 colleges have been given last reminder and a final notice has been served to them,” Yeole said.
The recommendation by BoD means the process for disaffiliation has been started. The matter would now be placed before the Academic Council which would prepare a report and forward it to the Management Council which is the authority to take final decision.
The NU goes ahead with disaffiliations, it would bring down the total number affiliated colleges to around 550. NU has 603 affiliated colleges now and only 450 among them are functional. The 98 blacklisted colleges were among 150 non-functional ones.
NU has been cracking down on errant colleges since 2013 over lack of full time faculty members and infrastructure. However, political pressure has been forcing the administration to reverse some steps.
In its biggest crackdown since the Vilas Sapkal administration banned 250 colleges, admissions to 248 colleges were frozen in different lots notified this year on June 2. Within a month, seven names from a lot of 39 were withdrawn citing ‘mistake’ by the college section. The 39 colleges had affiliation for current and next academic years but didn’t have full-time teachers for 130 courses as per the June 2 order.
Initially, NU had blacklisted 209 colleges under three categories – ones that didn’t apply for continuation of affiliation (98), those that applied but had not invited LEC teams (29), and those having no teachers despite getting affiliation (82).
On June 6, TOI was the first to report about NU softening its stance against the seven erring colleges. The move to disaffiliate 58 also hints at alleged bias against managements without political connections, NU officials said.
