Haryana’s private universities tally set to hit 29. But most serve Delhi’s DU-JNU spillover, not Haryana

The number of private universities, juxtaposed with the state's population and the location of the institutions, tells its own story about who Haryana's higher education system is serving.

Illustration for representation: Manisha Yadav | ThePrint

Gurugram: The Haryana Vidhan Sabha Tuesday passed a Bill to add two more private universities to the state’s list, taking the tally to 29—a number that, juxtaposed with the state’s population and the location of the institutions, tells its own story about who Haryana’s higher education system is serving.

The Haryana Private Universities (Amendment) Bill, 2026 amends the Schedule to the Haryana Private Universities Act, 2006, inserting Kusum International University, Rewari, and Masters’ Union University, Gurugram, as serial numbers 28 and 29.

In the Bill’s Statement of Objects and Reasons, Higher Education Minister Mahipal Dhanda said the state needs to “roughly double the number of institutions at all levels by 2030” to cross the 50 percent gross enrolment ratio benchmark set by the National Education Policy 2020. Government intervention alone “would not be adequate to meet this benchmark” and private sector participation is needed “in a major way”, he added.

With the latest addition, Haryana—with a population of 2.53 crore people according to the 2011 census—will have 12 Institutes of National Importance; 27 public universities, including 24 state and three central universities; and 29 private ones.

Compared to some other states, Haryana’s tally of 29 private universities stands out sharply once population is factored in. Punjab, with a slightly larger population of 2.77 crore (2011 census), has 16 private universities. Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state at nearly 20 crore, has around 48 private universities—nearly eight of them in Noida, near Delhi.

 

The Delhi effect

The Schedule to the Act, examined by ThePrint, reflects a pattern that experts have long pointed to: of the 29 private universities now listed, 12 are in Gurugram district, five in Sonepat, three in Jhajjar and two in Faridabad—the four Haryana districts that share a boundary with Delhi.

Both new universities added Tuesday fall within this NCR belt. Overall, 25 of the now 29 universities lie across the wider ring of districts close to Delhi, including Panipat, Rewari and Rohtak.

The Gurugram district list alone runs up to a dozen names, including Amity University, S.G.T. University, Apeejay Stya University, Sushant University, B.M.L. Munjal University, G.D. Goenka University, K.R. Mangalam University, and now Masters’ Union University.

O.P. Jindal Global University, Ashoka University, SRM University and Rishihood University anchor the Sonepat cluster.

According to Dr Suraj Bhan Bhardwaj, who retired as principal of Delhi University’s Moti Lal Nehru College, the concentration is no coincidence.

He said that students who fail to get admission to Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University or other Delhi colleges turn to Haryana’s private institutions instead.

The industrial and IT growth in NCR districts—such as Sonepat, Faridabad, Gurugram, Jhajjar, Rohtak, Palwal, Nuh, Panipat and Rewari—has given families in these areas the capacity to pay steep private university fees, he explained. Some of these institutions, like Ashoka and O.P. Jindal Global, he added, have built a strong faculty and reputation.

‘A gap state universities failed to fill’

Dr Mahabir Jaglan, a retired professor from Kurukshetra University, offered a starker assessment.

He told ThePrint that proximity to Delhi remains the single biggest factor, since students from across the country flock to the Capital to compete for seats in Delhi University, JNU and Jamia Millia Islamia—all central institutions—leaving large numbers of local Haryana students without a seat. Even Delhi’s two state universities, Ambedkar University and Indraprastha University, have been unable to absorb the overflow, he said.

Haryana had the opportunity to step in with strong state universities of its own, but did not take it, he said. “Haryana is a small state, and it could have proved a better alternative for those missing out on admissions in Delhi. But due to scarcity of faculty and political interference, seats remain vacant in Haryana’s state universities, while private universities are mushrooming.”

He said academic standards at many private universities remain poor, with some awarding degrees in non-attending mode and passing students who do little coursework.

Jaglan further linked the trend to funding policy. He said that the state government has been starving public universities of grants, replacing them in recent years with grants-in-aid that institutions must eventually repay—a shift he described as a deliberate push to hand higher education over to the private sector.

The teaching posts have borne the brunt, he remarked.

Vacant faculty positions in state universities have gone unfilled for four years, and the government has now moved to abolish these posts altogether, even though its own policy kept them vacant in the first place, Jaglan said, adding that the Haryana Federation of University and College Teachers’ Organisation is currently agitating against the move.

(Edited by Mannat Chugh)