Author: rinkutai

It allows the collective body the UGC members, to hand over specific administrative and financial powers to individual high-ranking officials like the Chairman, Vice-Chairman, or other senior officers.

Section 26 seeks to define minimum standards Clause (f) that apply to a tiny rural college and a massive metropolitan university alike.

29.1 Bare Act Provision 26. Power to make regulations.— (1) The Commission 1[may, by notification in the Official Gazette, make regulations] consistent with this Act and the rules made thereunder,— (a) regulating the meetings of the Commission and the procedure for conducting business thereat; (b) regulating the manner in which and the purposes for which […]

In a digital, real-time economy, these rules are an obstacle to transparency. The colonial era policy of Rule-by-Gazette is being replaced by Rule-by-Algorithm and Open Disclosure, rendering the rigid, slow-moving machinery of Section 25 a relic of the past.

The fine mentioned in the original 1956 Act (Rs. 1,000) was a significant sum in the colonial-era economy but is a joke in 2026.

Every year, the UGC publishes a list of Fake Universities violating Section 23. The fact that this list grows annually proves that the Prohibition model of 1956 is failing to deter modern commercial education.

This creates a chain of delay that halts policy-making at the Ministry level. Often, the information required under Section 21 is already present in the Annual Report under Section 18 or Audit under Section 19, yet the Return must be filed separately, leading to redundant paperwork.

When a Section 20 direction is issued, the UGC must then draft new regulations to match that direction. This two-step process of Government Direction followed by UGC Regulation, may create a significant time gap between a policy goal and its execution on campus.

Although due to digitization and translation machines like Sarvam AI, this delay can be reduced[2], but printing large number of copies take more time. More specifically, do all members of the house read these reports?

The UGC cannot spend freely without planning and it must forecast needs in advance and get government oversight.