UGC recommends HRD ministry to confer university status to IIMC

The Human and Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has received a recommendation from the University Grants Commission (UGC) to upgrade the status of Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) to that of a university.

The institute functions under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The UGC had formed a four-member committee in 2017 to assess IIMC's proposal.

"Based on the committee's recommendation and inspection team's feedback, the UGC has recommended that the ministry should issue a Letter of Intent (LoI) to the journalism school under the 'De Novo' category. The status will enable the institute to grant degrees instead of diplomas," a senior official from UGC shared.

The idea to grant the prestigious status to IIMC is not a new one; the Information and Broadcasting Ministry had approved it in 2016.

It was recommended in June that the institute be merged with either Jawaharlal Nehru University's Centre for Media Studies or Jamia Millia Islamia's AJK Mass Communication Research Centre. However, the institute, the HRD and the Information and Broadcasting ministries rejected the idea.