In August, 2012, the Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of India, invited TISS to provide support to the Ministry in planning, designing, and implementing one of the largest centrally sponsored schemes (CSS) called Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA). The RUSA is an overarching scheme, operated in mission mode for funding the state universities and colleges in order to achieve the aims of equity, access and excellence. The central funding flows from MHRD to institutions, through the State Governments. Funding to states is made on the basis of critical appraisal of State Higher Education Plans (SHEPs )

The objectives of RUSA are to:

• Improve the overall quality of existing state institutions by ensuring that all institutions conform to prescribed norms and standards and adopt accreditation as a mandatory quality assurance framework.
• Usher transformative reforms in the state higher education system by creating a facilitating institutional structure for planning and monitoring at the state level, promoting autonomy in State Universities and improving governance in institutions.
• Ensure academic and examination reforms in the higher educational institutions.
• Create opportunities for states to undertake reforms in the affiliation system in order to ensure that the reforms and resource requirements of affiliated colleges are adequately met.
• Ensure adequate availability of quality faculty in all higher educational institutions and ensure capacity building at all levels of employment.
• Create an enabling atmosphere in the higher educational institutions to devote themselves to research and innovations.
• Expand the institutional base by creating additional capacity in existing institutions and establishing new institutions, in order to achieve enrolment targets.
• Correct regional imbalances in access to higher education by facilitating access to high quality institutions in urban & semi‐urban areas, creating opportunities for students from rural areas to get access to better quality institutions and setting up institutions in un‐served & underserved areas.
• Improve equity in higher education by providing adequate opportunities of higher education to SC/STs and socially and educationally backward classes; promote inclusion of women, minorities, and differently abled persons.

RUSA follows a “Bottom Up” approach for planning and budgeting, with the institutions and states being the driving agents. The central funding will be in the ratio of 65:35 for general category states and 90:10 for special category states (North-Eastern States, Sikkim, J&K, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand).

https://rusa.nic.in