All You Need to Know About Indian Maritime University Act

Indian maritime university Act establishes and incorporates teaching and affiliate universities at the national level to facilitate and promote research in maritime studies and achieve excellence in marine science and technology, marine environment and other related fields.

Indian maritime act, 2008

On November 11, 2008, the Indian Maritime University Act became law. The primary goal of enacting this law was-

• To begin and include teaching at nationally renowned universities.
• To facilitate and encourage maritime studies and research.
• To achieve brilliance in marine science and technology, the marine environment, other related fields and similar issues.

For this act, “College” refers to accessing university privileges to deliver education and training in marine studies or related areas.

The college must be founded under the name “Indian Maritime University,” with its primary campus in Chennai and additional campuses in Mumbai, Kolkata, Visakhapatnam, and other locations as deemed appropriate. Chancellor, vice-chancellor, court member, executive counsel, academic council, planning board, and all other members such as officers or members shall compose the university. University is capable of suing or being sued in its name and has perpetual succession and a common seal. University will therefore be a teaching and affiliated university.

Powers of the Indian maritime university

The Indian maritime university shall have the following powers, namely:-

• Establishes provisions for research, knowledge advancement, and dissemination, as well as to give teaching in the fields of study that the university may determine from time to time;
• To provide for the conduct of special studies by recognised institutes;
• Create and maintain colleges, universities, departments, labs, libraries, museums, and centres for training, research, and specialised studies;
• Build and maintain the dorms, health facilities, and other facilities, including playgrounds, swimming pools, gymnasiums, and training ships.
• Make the provisions for the creation of campuses to serve a group of accredited colleges, as well as to construct and maintain common resource centres on such campuses in the form of libraries, labs, computer centres, and similar learning facilities;
• Confer degrees and other academic distinctions based on examinations, evaluations, or other methods of testing on individuals. To grant diplomas for certificates other than certificates of competencies of seafarers, which shall continue to be issued by the director-general of shipping, the government of India until the central government otherwise decides, subject to such conditions as the university may determine.
• To award honorary degrees or other honours by the statutes’ requirements;
• Plan and carry out extramural training, education, and extension services;
• Create and appoint individuals to principalships, professorships, associate professorships, assistant professorships, and other teaching or academic positions
• To specify the terms and conditions of employment for the following individuals:
  • Directors, Principals, teachers, and other academic staff members appointed by the university;
  • teachers and other academic staff members appointed by any college or institution; and
  • any other employee of a recognised college or institution, whether appointed by the university or such college or institution
• To hire individuals presently employed by any other university or organisation as university instructors for a predetermined time;
• Recognise a higher education institution for the purposes that the university may specify and revoke that recognition;
• Plan and carry out programmes for teachers, assessors, and other academic personnel, including refresher courses, workshops, seminars, and other events;
• Appoint visiting professors, emeritus professors, consultants, scholars, and other individuals who may help further the university’s goals on a contract basis or in another way;
• To designate candidates for teaching, non-teaching, administrative, ministerial, and other positions at the university;
• To partner, affiliate, or cooperate with any other university, authority, or institution of higher education in India or abroad, in the manner and for the reasons that the university may decide;
• To authorise the employment of individuals to serve as instructors in any school granted access to University privileges and to revoke such approval;
• To inspect recognised institutions using the appropriate machinery established for the purpose. They uphold the necessary standards for instruction, teaching, and training.
• Provide an adequate library, laboratory, hospital, workshop, and other academic facilities;
• Establish the fees and other charges that students at self-supporting colleges and institutions will be subject to;
• To coordinate the efforts of several colleges and institutions engaged in comparable or related research;
• To establish centres for the creation of curricula across disciplines;
• To admit its privileges to colleges and institutions not maintained by the university and to withdraw all or any of those privileges following such conditions as may be prescribed by the statutes;
• To acknowledge, guide, oversee, and govern halls not maintained by the university and other housing for students and to revoke any such acknowledgement;
• Create arrangements for research and advisory services, and to do so, the university may deem it essential to engage in agreements with other institutions or organisations;
• To establish fees for recognising institutes of higher learning;
• Establish criteria for admission to the university, which may involve testing via examination, assessment, or another technique;
• Create and distribute fellowships, scholarships, assistantships, medals, and awards;
• Request payment of fees and other charges and obtain it;
• To keep an eye on the university students living on campus and to set up plans to advance their health and general welfare;
• Provide whatever additional provisions for female students that the university may deem necessary;
• Establish rules governing how the university, college, and institution students should behave;
• Oversee and manage student admittance to various study programmes at departments, accredited institutions, schools, and centres of learning;
• To govern the work and behaviour of university workers as well as personnel of colleges and institutes;
• To maintain order among University staff and students and to adopt whatever disciplinary actions may be deemed necessary in this regard;
• To establish a code of conduct for recognised colleges’ and institutions’ management;
• To put plans in place to advance the well-being and general health of university personnel and those of colleges and institutions.
• To accept gifts, donations, and bequests from individuals and name chairs, institutions, buildings, and the like in their honour, as determined by the university, whose gift or donation to the university is worth the sum determined by the university;
• To purchase, hold, manage, and sell any property for the university, including trust and endowment properties;
• To take out a loan for the university with the central government’s consent and use its assets as collateral;
• To determine the courses, areas of specialisation, educational levels, and technical training needs of the students on a short- and long-term basis and to launch the appropriate programmes to address these demands;
• Must take action to solicit the industry’s cooperation in providing supplemental facilities;
• To enable mobility of students from the non-formal open learning stream to the formal stream and vice versa, as well as instruction through “remote learning” and “open approach”;
• To build any campuses, unique centres, specialised laboratories, or other research and teaching facilities that the university deems necessary to further its goal;
• To provide a department, institution, or college autonomous status following the statutes;
• To impose fees for such training following the statutes and to organise training to update the maritime standard of the industry and institute personnel;
• To create an offshore campus outside the country;
• To carry out all additional actions that may be required, incidental, or helpful for accomplishing the organisational mission.

Objects of the Indian maritime university

The objects of the university shall be-

• Facilitating and promoting maritime studies, training, research, and extension work with an emphasis on developing fields of study such as oceanography, history, maritime laws, maritime security, search and rescue, transportation of dangerous cargo, environmental studies, and other related fields, as well as achieving excellence in these and related fields, and other issues related in addition to or incidental;
• To encourage the advancement of knowledge by offering institutional and research facilities in the study that it deems appropriate and to plan integrated courses in science, other cutting-edge fields of technology, and related disciplines in the university’s educational programmes;
• to take the necessary steps to advanced interdisciplinary research, studies, and teaching-learning innovations, with a focus on the welfare of the Indian people and the advancement of their educational and economic interests;
• to advance the freedom, secularism, equality, and social justice enshrined in the Indian Constitution and to catalyse socioeconomic change by fundamental attitudes and ideals crucial to national development;
• Connect the university closely with local, regional, and national development challenges to increase the benefits of knowledge and advancement of people and society.

Fund of Indian maritime university

There shall be a fund for the university, which shall consist of:

• All contributions or grants made by the Central Government or any instrumentality of the Central Government;
• All efforts or guarantees made by the State Governments;
• All contributions from shipping companies, offshore construction companies, and diving companies;
• All bequests, donations, endowments, or other grants made by any private individual or institution; and
• All income that the university receives.

Conclusion

Maritime law is a new and underdeveloped field, and there isn’t much information available about it that would allow people to comprehend it. India has water surrounding it, and its commercial and business activities are conducted with the help of water bodies. Like all other laws, Maritime law is growing, broadening the application of Indian maritime university law even more.

Technology advancements highly impact the maritime business, and this impact has multiplied in recent years. The Indian Maritime University Act intends to work with prestigious institutes and universities around the globe to help the government conduct world-class research and deliver high-quality education and training. The university’s programs will help each student succeed in the sphere of their assigned responsibilities.