The data was shared by Union Minister of State for Education Subhas Sarkar in response to a written question in Lok Sabha. "As per information received from the UGC, out of the 1,113 universities and 43,796 colleges, NAAC has accredited 418 universities and 9,062 colleges," he said.

"To bring all the educational institutions, universities and colleges under the accreditation system, NAAC has considerably reduced the fee structure for assessment and accreditation. The metrics and questions in the manual for self-study report for affiliated and constituent colleges have also been considerably reduced," Sarkar added.

The number of colleges operating without NAAC accreditation is 34,734, he said. The new National Education Policy (NEP) envisions all higher educational institutions to aim, through their institutional development plans, to attain the highest level of accreditation over the next 15 years. The accreditation of universities and colleges is done by the NAAC, an Inter University Centre of the University Grants Commission (UGC).