Vani Jha
Delhi University had more than doubled the revenues collected as student fees over five years. The previous fiscal saw the university collect more than Rs 200 crore in this manner, even though funds received through UGC grants were mostly left unused. According to data released by its finance wing, Delhi University’s internal receipts- including mainly students’ fees but consultancy, etc.- added up to almost Rs 100 crore in the last fiscal year, 2019-2020.
Delhi University Doubles Fee Revenue
The amount has grown to over Rs 200 crore in the last five years, 2023-24. Grants from UGC to the university in absolute terms have increased over the five-year period, but, on aggregate decline, there is a drop in the proportion of UGC grants to the total inflow of funds or receipts. In 2019-2020, DU received a little over Rs 600 crore from UGC; in 2023-2024, data shows a little less than Rs 800 crore.
The share of UGC grants inflow has decreased from about 83 percent to 77 percent between 2019-20 and 2023-24. Public funding is going down in the running of the Delhi University, said a professor of commerce at DU. “Further, the absolute figure for total receipts is more than that of the total expenditure of Delhi University, and such a trend has also surfaced in the last two years. Thus, it reflects that funds from total receipts have been underutilized,” he added.
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University officials did not comment on this data immediately. DU had hiked up fees in July for all its degree courses, including a 60 percent hike in PhD courses. Last year, in December, DU increased its annual charges by 46 percent and doubled them again during the calendar year. Several university professors have accused this of an effort to recover interest on the HEFA loan from students’ pockets.
HEFA collaborates with Canara Bank and the Ministry of Education to provide financial assistance for developing infrastructural facilities and research in India’s premier educational institutions. “The government is compelling the institutes to produce their own funds, and student fees are one of the main sources through which institutes are generating their income. However, in that process, a huge portion of society would be denied education as this is not affordable for them,” said Abha Dev, secretary of the Democratic Teachers’ Front (DTF).
“The mandate of the central university is to provide mass education, yet initiatives like HEFA go against this principle. She added that the probe into how these loan funds are used is crucial. DU drew its significant funding- 76.6 percent of the overall inflow of funds in the financial year 2023-24 from UGC grants- while the remainder, 23.4 percent, came from internal sources such as student fees, as university data shows.
In October last year, HEFA sanctioned a loan corpus of Rs 930 crore for DU: the interest will be paid 10 percent by the university to the lending agency, and the Central government will meet the remaining 90 percent. According to the university’s Institutional Development Plan (IDP) 2024-2047, DU will raise its revenues from internal and external sources through various medium- and long-term mechanisms in the wake of the fall of shares in UGC grants.
Conclusion
Delhi University’s financial scenario has seen a complete overhaul, with increased burdens of fees on students’ accounts in the wake of UGC funding going down correspondingly. With the debate on the fee structure intensifying, faculty and students are bewildered with common issues like access to education and an ability to afford it cutting across all sections. As DU looks to alternative sources of revenue in the form of loans like HEFA, keeping the balance between financial self-reliance and public education’s mandate will be critical to that end. A closer look into fund utilization and strategic financial planning will be required to endeavor toward inclusive and sustainable education at the university.