Students, beware: 23 universities, 279 technical institutes in India fake

Menace of fake institutes is widespread and is getting increasingly lucrative, as more students look for higher education to improve their job prospects.

Delhi is the fake Capital with 66 colleges -- the highest for any state in India – offering engineering and other technical courses without the regulator’s permission. There are 279 such technical institutes in the country.

The UGC and AICTE have put out a list of fake institutes on their websites, warning students ahead of the new academic session that kicks in next month.(Sushil Kumar/HT File Photo)

Simply put, these schools don’t have the authority to grant degrees. Education certificates issued by such colleges are nothing but a piece of paper.

The Capital also has seven of the country’s 23 fake universities, the University Grants Commission has said.

In an annual review, the UGC and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) last month put out a list of such fake institutes on their websites, warning students ahead of the new academic session that kicks in next month.

“We send the list of unapproved and unregulated technical institutions to concerned state authorities for taking appropriate action against such institutions,” an official said.

UGC warning

UGC says there are 279 fake technical colleges and 23 fake universities in India.

UGC and AICTE put out a list of fake institutes, warning students ahead of the new academic session that kicks in next month

Minister Mahendra Nath Pandey told RS the state governments had been asked to investigate and register police complaints against fake universities

To know about fake universities and fake technical institutes, log on to UGC website www.ugc.ac.in and AICTE website www.aicte-india.org

Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharasthra also have a sizable number of fake technical institutes.

To ensure students don’t apply to such colleges, the technical education regulator, the AICTE, has also issued notices to these schools for not taking its approval.

“Public notices are also published in newspapers cautioning the students not to take admission in such unapproved institutions,” the official said.

Minister of state for human resource development Mahendra Nath Pandey told the Rajya Sabha recently that the ministry had written to state governments to investigate the matter and register police complaints against fake universities.

States have also been asked to initiate proceedings against those involved in defrauding and cheating students “by misrepresenting themselves as ‘universities’ awarding degrees with their name”, Pandey told the Rajya Sabha.

Menace of fake institutes is widespread and is getting increasingly lucrative, as more students look for higher education to improve their job prospects.

The details of fake universities and fake technical institutes are available on the UGC website www.ugc.ac.in and AICTE website www.aicte-india.org.