Delhi University’s standing committee for new courses has given green signal for a number of new courses for different affiliated colleges. These courses are intended to get started from next academic session 2016-17.

The proposed courses are yet a step behind as waiting for final approval from the executive council and academic council.

Member of standing committee and academic council, Mr. Nachiketa Singh said, “This has been the long standing demand of several colleges. So after the Delhi University officials went and inspected the colleges in terms of their infrastructure and faculty, approvals and recommendation to the courses was given”. According to sources, during the inspection process the university also turned down the requests made by some colleges to start these courses.

Some of the courses for colleges like Khalsa College, Ramanujan College, Gargi College, Kalindi College, Aryabhatta College, Indraprastha College for Women, Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, Bharti College and Sri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce have been approved by the committee, chaired by Pro-Vice Chancellor Professor Sudhish Pachauri.

According to the standing committee members, over 20 colleges have applied for the new courses for the upcoming academic session. The recommendations of the inspection committee have been listed in the meeting and most of them are selected and sent for final clearance from the academic council and executive council.

From the coming academic session the committee has decided to withhold some of the programs like Journalism, Forensic Science and Anthropology due to various reasons which were not publicized yet by the committee.

But, a major issue has emerged related to the execution of the new courses from upcoming academic sessions as there is no time left to convene for the academic council meeting. Plus the colleges are about to commence the admission for the proposed courses from the next month, the standing committee members confirmed.

Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Khalsa College takes the pride for being the first affiliated college of DU to commence the course in Forensic Studies, while the existing Bachelor of Business Studies or BBS will now be provided by four more affiliated colleges in Delhi, namely Gobind Singh College of Commerce, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, Keshav Mahavidyalaya and Ramanujan College. These four colleges will be offering BBS for the first time and the total seat for BBS will be 275 for the upcoming academic session.

Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, SGTB Khalsa College, Shivaji College, Shri Guru Nanak Dev Khalsa College, Ramanujan College and Aryabhatta College have received green signal to introduce Bachelor of Science (Honors) Computer Science from the upcoming academic session. The Kalindi College is now allowed to commence undergraduate programs in Zoology, Geography and Chemistry. Some of the other women oriented colleges in Delhi that have been appointed to introduce new courses from upcoming academic session include Bharti College (BA -Hons- Journalism, IP College (Sociology) and Gargi College (BSc -Hons- Mathematics).

Aditi Mahavidyalaya has been approved to commence B.A. (Honors) Geography and Ambedkar College has also received green signal to start B.Sc. Physical Science from next session and Bhagini Nivedita College will start B.Sc. Applied Physical Sciences with Computer Science.

According to the DU’s standing committee the sanctioned seat for science program is restricted to 32 seats, while 46 seats are reserved for Arts and Commerce courses.

The affiliated colleges for the proposed courses are chosen on the basis of their infrastructural strength, faculty, laboratories and libraries. However, demand for the proposed courses is also the deciding factor while selecting the colleges for the fresh courses.