Ordinance Summary 

The Maharashtra Public Universities (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020

• The Maharashtra Public Universities (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020 was promulgated on June 24, 2020.  It amends the Maharashtra Public Universities Act, 2016.   The Act provides for academic autonomy to universities, and regulation of higher education in the state.  Key features of the Ordinance are:
   
• Extension of time limit: The Act provides the procedure and prescribes the time limit for seeking permission for opening a new college or starting a new course, subject, faculty, or an additional division.  Under the Act, the management intending to start a new college has to submit a proposal to the university.  The university scrutinizes the proposal and forwards it to the state government.  The state government grants a letter of intent to institutions after consideration of various factors such as suitability of the management and location of the institution, among others.  The management has to comply with the necessary conditions mentioned in the letter of intent and submit a compliance report along with other documents to the university for final approval.  For the academic year 2020-21, the Ordinance extends certain time limits specified under the Act relating to the following actions: (i) the deadline for forwarding the compliance report to the state government by the Board of Deans has been extended from May 1, 2020 to June 30, 2020; (ii) the deadline for granting the final approval by the state government to open a new college or start a new course, subject, faculty, or an additional division has been extended from June 15, 2020 to July 31, 2020.