Accreditation for all higher educational institutes will soon be mandatory. University Grants Commission, UGC, and All India Council for Technical Education, AICTE, are set to issue regulations by early next year in this regard.

The Ministry of Human Resources Development said the regulations could be notified by as early as January.

Our correspondent reports, lack of mandatory accreditation and increase in number of private universities are presently posing a problem for students, making it difficult for them to judge the standards of an institute before taking admission.

Underling the urgency of the accreditation issue Human Resources Development minister Pallam Raju said a new accreditation body under AICTE will be set up.

He said the Indian Board of Accreditation will follow the best practices of different countries and come out with new methodologies of evaluation.