Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeet, Pune

The origin of the Vidyapeeth dates back to the pre-independence period – 1921 when immediately after the demise of Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, his follower Mahatma Gandhi mooted the idea of establishing a university in his memory. As we all are aware one of the postulates of the four fold formula conceived by Lokmanya Tilak was National Education, the other three being Swaraj, Swadeshi and Boycott of Foreign Goods. The delegates of the first Maharashtra Provincial Conference on 6th May 1921 under the Presidentship of Shrimat Shankaracharya of Karveer Peeth decided to have a National University in Maharashtra and thus the present day Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth (TMV) was established. Since it’s inception, TMV, the public funded university had world renowned scholar Shri Shankaracharya Vidyashankar Bharati alias Dr. Kurtakoti as its first Chancellor. This post has been held by other eminent personalities of great intellect and recognition at the national level such as the great Sanskrit Scholar Bharatacharya Shri. C. V. Vaidya, the first premier of Bombay Presidency Shri. B. G. Kher, Dr. M. S. alias Lokanayak Bapusaheb Aney, a great Sanskrit scholar and a historian Mahamahopadhyay Datto Vaman Potdar, and Honorable Shri. Y. B. Chavan, Shri. S. B. Chavan, Shri. Shivraj Patil, Shri. Sushilkumar Shinde – all Union Home Ministers. During the pre-independence period, degrees awarded in the faculties of Arts, Management, Commerce and Engineering as well as the research works in Sanskrit and Ayurveda were world acclaimed and recognized. Similarly, in the post-independence period, the degrees of Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth were equivalent to the degrees of other statutory universities. Though late, it was only in the year 1987 that the University Grants Commission took cognizance of the significant work of TMV in the fields of Sanskrit, Ayurveda, Social Sciences and Distance Education and thereby on its recommendations, the Government of India conferred the “Deemed to be University” status upon Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth. With this conferment of “Deemed to be University” status, the Vidyapeeth gained recognition at the national level. The concept of Non-formal Education was first discussed at the national level only in the year 1985 and thereby the TMV contributed to this national vision by launching distance education course (B.A.). TMV takes pride in the fact that the distance education programme was launched before to the establishment of IGNOU at national level and YCMOU at the state level. Since its founding, TMV had very rich human resources. However, being a public funded university, Vidyapeeth could not make any significant progress owing to financial constraints. It is true that on one hand, the Vidyapeeth had limited resources and on the other hand less support was rendered by the Central/State Government. With the conferment of “Deemed to be University” status in 1987, the Vidyapeeth received its first financial assistance for the development of campus during the last phase of the VIII Plan. Simultaneously the State Government also sanctioned a salary component for some teaching (17) and non-teaching posts (52). Since then the Vidyapeeth has also received financial support for development / the research purposes from UGC/State Government. It is to be noted that for smooth and efficient functioning of the Vidyapeeth, requisite teaching and non-teaching staff were employed from its own funds.