The government has amended the 34-year-old University Grants Commission (UGC) Rules to enable more private institutes get grants.

The UGC (Fitness of Institutions for Grants) Rules 1975 have been amended by the HRD Ministry, a senior official said.

The University Grants Commission (Fitness of Institutions for Grants) (Amendment) Rules, 2009 will enable the UGC to relax one or more of its conditions for giving grants to private and unaided institutions in the country.

As per the earlier rules, those private institutes, which met certain criteria with regard to faculty and infrastructure, got grants from the UGC.

The criteria laid down that a private institute should have at least five departments each having one professor, two readers and three to four lecturers. They should have administrative and academic buildings.

“Now, even if certain institutes do not have such facilities and faculty can be considered for grants. The amended rules allows the UGC to relax norms,” the official said.

The rules have been amended at a time when the UGC is set to start a new scheme for one-time grant for the private and unaided institutes. The scheme was discussed at the conference of state education secretaries at the UGC on September 19.