University Grants Commission (UGC) has issued a public notice saying that it does not recognise Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM),which has a campus in the city. The UGC,in a statement on its website,said the institute was not entitled to award degrees to the candidates. We inform students that IIPM is not an university within the meaning of the UGC Act. Also,as per Section 22 of the Act,IIPM does not have any right to confer or grant degrees, the UGC said. IIPM is neither entitled to award MBA,BBA,BCA degree nor the institute is recognised by UGC, the commission said. UGC also requested students to only seek admission to those institutes that are established by a central or a state act,or those that have deemed university status by under Section 3 of the UGC Act,or institutes especially empowered by the Parliament to award degrees. Last year,the Deccan Gymkhana police had registered a case of cheating against the institute following protests by the students who had enrolled in a post-graduate programme in Planning and Entrepreneurship course. They had alleged that the two-year course was a distance learning course as opposed to a full-time programme that they were made to believe at the time of admission. Amit Saxena,head of Corporate Communication for IIPM described the UGC public notice as a motivated and defamatory claim and said that IIPM has time and again clarified that does not give degrees. We are a heavily advertised institution and obviously every one has a clear idea that similar to the IIMs and ISB,the IIPM is not a university nor does it give degrees. However,as per a recent UGC statement the public is being made to think that IIPM claims to be a University and gives its own degrees. In fact till 2008 IIPM advertisements used to clearly mention that IIPM does not come under the UGC/AICTE, he added.
