Punjab Cabinet gives nod to policy on private digital universities

Chandigarh, Jan 9 (PTI) The Punjab Cabinet here on Friday gave nod to India’s first comprehensive policy under which private institutions can establish fully digital universities in the state.

The cabinet,

which met here under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, “gave nod to the Punjab Private Digital Open Universities Policy, 2026 to regulate and promote private digital open universities offering online and open distance learning (ODL) programmes.

The policy aims for quality higher education for the students of the state and opening up employment opportunities for them, an official statement said.

The policy aligns with UGC Regulations, 2020, and introduces state-level standards for quality, accessibility, digital infrastructure, data governance, and learner protection, the statement said.

“This pioneering policy will expand flexible, affordable higher education and position Punjab as a digital learning hub,” it said.

“Under this policy, private institutions can establish fully digital universities in Punjab. This is India’s first such policy and so far. Only Tripura has set up a digital university, but without a comprehensive policy, so Punjab becomes the first state to provide both a policy and a model in this area,” it said.

This will prove to be a boon for students or professionals busy with life, family, or jobs as they will be able to complete degrees without quitting jobs, without changing cities and even without going to classrooms, the statement said. It said the policy was the need of the hour as a large number of students worldwide are learning from online platforms.

Similarly, lakhs of students are passing tough exams like JEE, NEET, and UPSC by watching free online lectures. In India too, crores of youth are building careers by learning from online courses and AI apps but the existing university policy only allows physical campuses, it said.

This meant digital-first universities were not legally possible in India, as a result, students got formal degrees from colleges but learned key skills online, thereby creating a huge gap between the two. However, the new policy bridges this gap, it said.

Now, students can complete their entire degree from home on mobile or laptop and these degrees will be legally valid and compliant with AICTE/UGC standards, the state government claimed.

“A new era of lifelong learning and upskilling will be heralded, thereby strengthening the culture of continuous learning in fields like IT, AI, Business, Healthcare, Manufacturing, and Data Science,” it said.

For setting up these digital universities, at least 2.5 acres of land, digital content studios, control rooms, server rooms, and operations centres, and state-of-the-art digital infrastructure will be required, according to the government.

Likewise, every digital university must have digital content creation studios, IT server rooms, Learning Management System (LMS) operations centre, digital examination control rooms, tech-enabled call centres, 24×7 student support systems and a minimum Rs 20 crore corpus fund.

This will ensure that only serious and capable institutions come forward for this, it said.

Separate bills will be introduced in the Punjab Assembly for every approved proposal, ensuring each digital university is legally strong and transparent.

“This policy is modelled on the world’s successful digital universities like Western Governors University (USA), University of Phoenix (USA), Walden University (USA), Open University Malaysia and others who have provided low-cost, modern, high-quality education to millions of students,” the statement said.

Punjab is now building India’s most modern higher education ecosystem to directly benefit Punjab’s students as it lowers the cost of education, digital mode reduces infrastructure costs, more affordable fees and no hidden expenses, it said.

New skills like AI, cybersecurity, cloud computing, business skills, and robotics will be part of the degree programme and it will solve students’ biggest problem as earlier, they got degrees from one place and real learning from another.

But now, both will be available in one place through digital universities, which will save time and money for lakhs of youth as there will be no commuting, PG/hostel, stationery, or travel expenses, it said. PTI SUN SKY SKY