Students protest registration number blocking by Pune’s SPPU, varsity cites UGC’s term limit rule

A 2015 notification by the UGC laid out a maximum term validity of N+2+1 years for students to complete a degree in exceptional cases, where N stands for the minimum duration prescribed for the programme.

This means that students who began their four-year courses in 2017-2018 would have to complete the degree by 2024.

Rushikesh Badgujar, an engineering student at Pune Vidhyarthi Griha’s College of Engineering and Technology, said, “I joined the course in 2017 and completed my first two years. Then I had to take a drop for a few years due to financial constraints. I joined back in 2023 to complete my last two years but we were never told that we would be ineligible in 2024. If we had been informed earlier we would not have joined and wasted a year here. We are a group of 25 students. A few of us protested for 12 hours and then our protest was stopped by the police.”

Similarly, an engineering student at Navsahyadri Group Of Institute, Harshada Shelar, said, “I took admission in 2017. We have not received any information, and the college did not provide us with any documents about the term validity. Due to personal issues at home I had to take a few drop years and now I am disqualified.”

Mahesh Kakde, director of the Board of Examinations and Evaluation at SPPU, explained the university’s decision. “The management council of the university accepted the UGC notification in 2016, and this was notified at that time. These are our students, and if there was any possibility that we could help them, we would. What can we do if they are not eligible under the UGC rules?” he asked.

“We have allowed over 17,000 students who have backlogs to appear, but UGC is not at all ready to give relief to students who want to appear for the final year beyond the prescribed time limit,” Kakde added.