New Delhi: It has been six years and the wait is still not over for the highest monitoring body of the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA), which ideally should meet twice a year.

This anomaly got highlighted due to the repetitive mention by a recent review report of the University Grants Commission (UGC) prepared by an expert committee.

The General Council body comprises of eminent academicians as members and the Union Human Resource Development (HRD) minister as its chairman. The minister's job responsibility includes reviewing broad policies and functioning of the school and also sanctioning annual accounts.

A university official on the condition of anonymity said that, "The ministries seem to be too busy to pay attention to this school. We have been writing to them since 2004 to seek confirmation for a meeting to convene but unfortunately, it didn't happen. The Council guides the institution to keep up with the changing times but their absence has definitely affected its functioning."

During Kapil Sibal's term, the school has already written twice to the ministry to which he replied, "Hundreds of autonomous institutions ply under me and there has been no intimation as to why there has not been a meeting at the SPA. I will surely look into the matter."

The report of UGC claims that SPA, which is a centrally funded deemed university is not upto the standards.

However, it is ironical that the UGC's report comes at a time when the HRD ministry just after two months decided to divest 44 deemed universities of their status for similar charges.

According to the report, many deficiencies can only be corrected once the General Council is resurrected.