Documents won't need attestation- UGC

Students applying for courses in universities will no longer require attestation of their documents as self-certification will be enough, a development that will come as a huge relief to them.

Following up on the decision taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the UGC has sent a communication to Vice Chancellors of universities across the country asking them to initiate "urgent steps" for implementing the measures. It gave them a week's time to comply with the directions.

"It is requested that the process of abolition of affidavits and adoption of self-certification may be complied with at the earliest and compliance report be sent to UGC with a week of the issue of the letter," the Commission said in its communication.

The move would come as a huge relief to students as obtaining attestations from gazetted officers to documents involved a lot of hassles. The measure posed more difficulty for students in rural areas scouting for a gazetted officer, officials said.

The system of self-attestation is aimed at simplifying procedures. Under this method, original documents are required to be produced at the final stage of admission.

According to the UGC, self-certification is citizen-friendly and obtaining either an attested copy or affidavit not only costs money to the poor citizen but also involves wastage of time of citizens and government officials.

Several universities have already started accepting self-attested documents and the communication is intended to set a time-line for the rest to follow it, said HRD Ministry officials.