TN Govt writes to Centre on control over Deemed Varsities

Chennai, Aug 16 (UNI) The Tamil Nadu government has written to the Union Government on the need for equipping the former with powers to exercise control over Deemed Universities in the state.

In a statement here, Minister for Higher Education K Ponmudi said Chief Minister M Karunanidhi had written to Union Human Resources Development Minister on the need for the State Government to exercise control over such universities in respect of admission of students and fee structure.

Presently, the self-financing professional colleges, after securing the Deemed University status, enjoyed the privilege of admitting students and fixing the fee structure on their own.

They were not required to surrender seats to the government under the present set up.

For establishment of self-financing medical colleges, the Health Department had to give essentiality certificate based on which the Medical Council of India (MCI) would accord permission for starting the college.

However, once the colleges started working, they directly got Deemed University status from the Union Human Resource Development Ministry without getting essentiality certificate or recommendation from the State Government, he claimed.

Recently, the Union Ministry had given Deemed University status to the private Chettinad Medical College without any recommendation from the State Government.

This had deprived the state of 83 seats under the government quota, he said.

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