UGC warns of freezing fund flows to varsities not open to online monitoring
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The University Grants Commission
The Centre has decided not to release any financial assistance, including student scholarships, to universities and colleges not registered with the public finance monitoring system (PFMS).
The University Grants Commission (UGC) has toughened its stand as a large number of higher educational institutions were yet to join the system despite repeated requests since April last year. The system has been created by the Finance Ministry for online transfer and management of funds to ensure transparency. “Henceforth, beneficiary institutions will not receive any financial assistance from the UGC unless registered on PFMS portal,” vice chairman of the higher education regulator H Devaraj said.
The Centre decided to bring all universities, colleges and other higher educational institutions under the PFMS from April 1, 2015 for timely release of funds to state governments as well as beneficiaries of various central sector schemes.
Disbursal of student scholarships directly to their bank accounts under direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme was also brought under the ambit of PFMS.
To bring all the higher educational institutions on board, the UGC requested them to digitize records of all the students availing scholarships under various schemes of the commission. It also held at least two interface meetings with the universities in last seven months for collection of the students’ details, including their bank account information.
“A number of grant-in-aid bills related to old manual cases are still lying pending as the beneficiary university and institutions are still not mapped or registered on the PFMS portal,” a UGC official said.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) has toughened its stand as a large number of higher educational institutions were yet to join the system despite repeated requests since April last year. The system has been created by the Finance Ministry for online transfer and management of funds to ensure transparency. “Henceforth, beneficiary institutions will not receive any financial assistance from the UGC unless registered on PFMS portal,” vice chairman of the higher education regulator H Devaraj said.
The Centre decided to bring all universities, colleges and other higher educational institutions under the PFMS from April 1, 2015 for timely release of funds to state governments as well as beneficiaries of various central sector schemes.
Disbursal of student scholarships directly to their bank accounts under direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme was also brought under the ambit of PFMS.
To bring all the higher educational institutions on board, the UGC requested them to digitize records of all the students availing scholarships under various schemes of the commission. It also held at least two interface meetings with the universities in last seven months for collection of the students’ details, including their bank account information.
“A number of grant-in-aid bills related to old manual cases are still lying pending as the beneficiary university and institutions are still not mapped or registered on the PFMS portal,” a UGC official said.