The university, aimed at creating a regional centre of academic excellence in South Asia, will be housed in the National Capital Region, officials from the Ministry of External Affairs told The Indian Express.

“The proposal mooted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the November 2005 Dhaka Summit has been approved by all the member countries during the New Delhi summit. The first meeting of the Steering Committee was held two days back,” said a senior MEA official. The concept plan for the SAU was prepared by Gowher Rizvi, Director, Ash Institution of Democratic Governance & Innovations at Harvard University.

The university is likely to have centres in all SAARC nations. While the host nation will be allowed to admit a larger fixed percentage of Indian students, there will be earmarked number of seats for students from each SAARC member nation. Fifty per cent of the faculty will be Indian nationals, while the rest will comprise guest faculty and academicians from the SAARC nations.

“The identity of the university will be essentially regional-South Asian. While initially this university will offer post graduate courses, there is a plan to include undergraduate courses and as well. The residential university will have a distinct academic character like Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU),” added the official.

However, the SAU proposal has received ambivalent responses from experts.

Dr Mohan Man Sainju, former Vice-Chairman National Planning Commission & former chairman of Institute for Integrated Development Studies, Kathmandu, says homework on the project is yet to be done. “It is still not very clear as to what is the objective of a South Asian University. After all, India and all other SAARC nations have their bunch of select centres of academic excellence, so what is going to bring students to this particular university?”

Jehan Ara, Advisor of Pakistan Software Houses Association said the “connectivity” is far easy to achieve through linking up of major universities of SAARC nations on the Internet.