Presently, there are seven deemed universities in Pune including Symbiosis, Bharati Vidyapeeth, DY Patil Institute, Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Deccan College and DIAT. According to the chart of the proposals for deemed universities pending with the University Grants Commission (UGC), there are nine proposals from Pune. Of these, the status of the four institutes show that the process is in final stage, while remaining five have been asked to comply with the deficiencies. The information about the pending proposals as on January 9, 2008, is given on the website of UGC.

The Dayanand Anglo Vedic or DAV, which is planning to set up a campus at Chamkhed and FLAME, which has a campus at Lavale are also in the process of sending proposal to the UGC for the deemed university status. This takes the number of deemed universities to come up in Pune to 18.

Elaborating on the reason why Pune stands first in the number of deemed universities, Arun Nigavekar, former chairman of the UGC said: “Pune is an established brand and it helps educational institutes to grow as students identify with it. The conducive environment for education also helps.”

Presently, there are 408 universities in the country out of which 99 are deemed. Around 100 more proposals are pending with the UGC for the deemed university status. The main reason behind applying for the deemed university status is to have academic autonomy. “There is a growing need to have syllabus in accordance with the requirements of industry. But in the current scenario, the institutes affiliated to the state universities do not have liberty to change the syllabus. The curriculum will change as per the decision of the state universities. The institutes want to do away with it to have their own syllabus as per the industry requirements,” said Vidya Yerawadekar, joint director, Symbiosis, who is also a member of the UGC.