All universities under the University Grants Commission (UGC) have been asked to form self-financing units (SFUs) for students under the National Service Scheme (NSS) in order to provide students with all the benefits of the scheme. While the expenditure of setting up these units must be borne by the universities, the universities can charge a nominal fee from students and mobilise funds through corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities.
In a letter written by the Department of Youth Affairs and Sports, Secretary Rajeev Gupta has said that “ideally the scheme should be available to all eligible students, but due to fund constraints, the scheme currently covers less than 10 per cent of the students eligible to join it.”
Thus, in view of this, Gupta further said that a new mechanism had been introduced, but the same was supposedly not implemented fully. “The department had introduced a mechanism for permitting the setting up of self-financing units of NSS in 2007-08. The operational guidelines for setting up of SFUs have been simplified recently. A copy of the same is enclosed for ready reference. It may be seen that the SFUs are entitled to all the benefits of the scheme at par with Government-funded NSS units, the only difference being that the expenditure on setting up such units is required to be borne by the education institutions concerned,” wrote Gupta.
However, Gupta stated that if necessary, a nominal fee could be charged from students for NSS programme activities and may also mobilise funds through CSR activities of corporate sector.
The UGC, in accordance with that, said that all educational institutions should join this youth development effort by setting up SFUs of NSS. “The SFUs are entitled to all benefits of the scheme at par with Government-funded NSS units, the only difference being that the expenditure of setting up such units is required to be borne by the educational institutes concerned,” said Pankaj Mittal, joint secretary of UGC.