The Ministry of Human Resource Development has written to Delhi University to sign an MoU — to be signed by DU, the Ministry and the University Grants Commission (UGC) — for release of funds by the government to the varsity so as to continue to access funds.
The MoU is believed to detail the ways in which the university will seek to generate internal resources, a laying down of how it will use the government funds and also mention the internal governance practices of the university.
This is being looked upon as a possible trigger to fee hikes, but the HRD Ministry denies this.
‘Compulsory to sign MoU’
“The General Financial Rules state that it is compulsory for any organisation that receives more than ₹5 crore from the government to sign an MoU that will include their statement as to how these funds will be used and their principles of governance, like appointments, etc. They will also need to increase their internal resources, which can be done through various means like reducing costs, commercialising patents, etc. They have to build internal resources,” Higher Education Secretary R. Subrahmanyam told The Hindu .
He, however, said that this had nothing to do with fee hikes. “Fee hikes are anyway decided by the government and not the university. That is a wrong interpretation,” he said. HRD Ministry sources said DU alone has not signed the MoU and the letter is simply about asking it to do so.
“The university has called a meeting of the Executive Council on September 27 and the draft will be placed before the members. The MoU states that varsities will spell out performance parameters, output targets in terms of details of the programme of work and an action plan for the implementation and monitoring of the agreement and others,” PTI quoted a DU official.
