Eyeing more open universities, UGC eases land norms

NEW DELHI: Relaxing the norms for setting up of an open university, the University Grants Commission has reduced the requirement of developed land from 40-60 acres to five acres on Thursday.
As per a gazette notification, UGC (Fitness of Open Universities for grants) Rules, 1989, will now be called the UGC (Fitness of Open Universities for grants) (Amendment), Rules, 2022.
“The idea behind this reform is to promote more institutions in distance and online mode education without being limited by the availability of developed land for the institution. Earlier, the minimum land required for such institutions was 40-60 acres which will be very difficult to procure in cities and hilly areas. This has been reduced to five acres of developed land,” said M Jagadesh Kumar, chairperson, UGC.
“Since students are not going to be on campus full-time, the commission felt that the infrastructural requirements can be relaxed for more universities to start functioning and offer education to more students,” he added.