Chennai: In a major boost to its revenue, the University of Madras is set to admit students from other states in distance education without any territorial limit for this year. Earlier, UGC had restricted state universities offering distance education programmes outside the territorial jurisdiction of the particular state. Many universities including the University of Madras had opposed this move as distance education programmes contributed a major part to its revenue.

The registrar of the University of Madras had filed a writ petition opposing the territorial limit in Madras high court. The high court in its order last week granted an interim relief permitting it to admit and enrol students in the distance education mode without territorial limit for 2016-17 and the subsequent year. However, the court asked the university to put on notice about the pendency of the writ petition to the students who enrol. The university also initiated the admission process as per the order.

“We have started the admission process for the academic year 2016-17. The prospectus is put out on the university’s website,” said M. Ravichandran, director, Institute of Distance Education, University of Madras. At present, the Institute of Distance Education offers 97 programmes including 27 undergraduate courses, 21 postgraduate courses, 18 professional and 21 diploma courses. It also offers 10 certificate courses.

The University has 23 study centres in six states and in New Delhi and Puducherry. “Last year, IDE got over 27,000 admissions to various programmes. Of these, around 20 per cent are from other states,” a syndicate member said.