Monday, Oct 20, 2008
The 11th Five-Year Plan has proposed many new ambitious projects for the expansion of higher education in the country. For the first time, an amount of Rs 84,943 crores has been allocated for new projects and for the upgradation of existing projects in higher and technical education. However, when it comes to the implementation of these projects the scenario looks far from positive because the detailed project reports (DPRs) for many of the projects are yet to be finalised.

Besides, although there is a huge fund allocation of Rs 84,943 crores, only a small amount has been allocated in the central budget of 2007-08 and 2008-2009, which are Rs 3,263 crores and Rs 7,600 crores respectively. These facts have come to light in a recent report prepared by the National University of Education Planning and Administration (NUEPA).


The report is an outcome of the observations made in a two-day conference by academicians, members of the Planning Commission and vice-chancellors of various universities. The conference was organised by NUEPA to take ‘stock of the existing implementation of 11th Five-Year Plan in higher education and discuss strategies for implementation for the rest of the Plan period.’ The report stated: ‘The present scenario on the status of implementation is dismal and is a cause of great concern.’

For the implementation of any new scheme, there is a long and elaborate process. For project clearance, a DPR is required to be prepared, followed by in-principle approval by the Planning Commission. Subsequently, eligible financial contract (EFC) memo is prepared and sent for recommendation. Then the draft and final Cabinet note is circulated and approved. The process is time-bound. But, as per the report there are over 40 projects in higher and technical education for which the DPR has yet to be finalised by the ministry of human resources development (MHRD). For 14 projects, DPR is awaited. In case of over five projects nothing so far has begun.

"The 11th Plan sets out huge targets in terms of setting up of new universities and other projects. But, we cannot have any decent institute till the time we have a detailed plan on various components of the institute like number of students, faculty members, infrastructure, etc. Till the time we have DPRs, it is unlikely that we will meet the target of setting up new institutes," said Abhijit Sen, member, Planning Commission. He also observed that it is the existing institutes that will play a major role in the expansion of higher education instead of new universities.

Farqan Qamar, advisor (higher education), Planning Commission, while commenting on the number of projects for which DPRs are awaited, said, "The presentation was made a few days ago, and since then the status of DPRs for a few projects has changed. A lot of thinking is involved before planning a project. DPRs present further fine tuning of those projects." But, both the members of the commission and a faculty from NUEPA agreed that it was not possible for any project to start if the DPR was not prepared. Ideally, DPRs should be prepared at least four to five years before the start of a project and it is already the second year of the 11th Plan.

Apart from it, issues related to access, enrolment, technical education and world-class universities were also discussed in the report. When it comes to technical education, it was noted that there is ‘mindless imbalance in technical education expansion’ in the country. "This imbalance is both, regional and discipline-wise. It is only in one year that the number of engineering colleges has gone up to 2,250 from 1,600. There is a mad rush for starting up engineering colleges. Also, the state of Tamil Nadu alone has 340 engineering colleges. This is a scandal in technical education and nothing much has been done to prevent this," said M Anandakrishnan, chairman, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur.