South Asian University: SAARC Agreement, the SAU Act and How It Is Run

South Asian University (SAU) is an international university set up by the eight member countries of SAARC, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, under an agreement they signed in New Delhi on 4 April 2007. It has run from Delhi since 2010 and now teaches on its own 100-acre campus at Maidan Garhi in south Delhi, with students drawn mainly from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Two misunderstandings follow SAU around. The first is that it is an Indian central university like JNU. It is not: Indian law gives force to an international treaty, and the university is governed by a board drawn from all eight countries. The second is that SAU is a symbol with nothing behind it. It has a real campus, real degrees and an Act of Parliament, but its troubles with money, leadership and SAARC’s own stalemate are real too. This note covers both halves.

South Asian University at a Glance

The table gathers the founding facts from the university’s own pages and the South Asian University Act, 2008.

How Did South Asian University Begin?

SAU began as an Indian proposal for a shared regional institution. The Prime Minister of India put forward the idea at the 13th SAARC Summit in Dhaka in 2005: the member countries would pool resources to build one centre of excellence that students from every country could attend.

The steps that followed took about five years:

• Concept paper. Prof. Gowher Rizvi, a historian from Bangladesh, drafted the concept paper after consultations across the region.
• The Agreement, 2007. The foreign ministers signed the Agreement for the Establishment of South Asian University on 4 April 2007, during the 14th SAARC Summit in New Delhi.
• Project Office, 2008. India set up a project office under Prof. G.K. Chadha, a former Vice-Chancellor of JNU, while a SAARC steering committee and inter-governmental task forces drafted the rules, academic structure and business plan.
• Foundation stone, 2008. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee laid the foundation stone at Maidan Garhi on 26 May 2008.
• Approval, 2010. The 16th SAARC Summit at Thimphu approved the university’s documents in 2010, and SAU opened to students in August 2010.

The campus journey was slower. Teaching began in a few buildings lent free by JNU, moved to Akbar Bhawan in Chanakyapuri in 2011, and reached the permanent Maidan Garhi campus only in 2023. A Nepalese architecture firm, chosen through a regional competition, designed it, and construction started in 2014.

What Does the South Asian University Act, 2008 Do?

The South Asian University Act, 2008 is the Indian law that turns the 2007 treaty into something courts and officials in India must obey. Section 3 says the provisions of the Agreement, printed as a schedule to the Act, “shall have the force of law in India”, notwithstanding anything in other laws.

That one clause explains the university’s unusual nature. An ordinary central university is created by an Act of Parliament and controlled through Indian bodies. SAU is created by an international agreement, and the Act’s job is to give that agreement effect on Indian soil. The Agreement describes SAU as a “non-state, non-profit, self governing international educational institution” with full academic freedom.

The main legal powers and privileges, all from the Act and its schedule:

• Legal personality. SAU can grant degrees, sign contracts, sue and be sued, own property and set up campuses and centres anywhere in the SAARC region.
• Headquarters. The Act fixes the headquarters in Delhi; the Agreement fixes the main campus in India.
• Tax status. The university is exempt from direct and indirect taxes for its establishment and operations in the country where it is located.
• Visas. Member states are to issue suitable visas and resident permits to students, faculty and staff.
• Recognition of degrees. Article 7 commits every member state to recognise SAU degrees at par with those of its own national universities. The University Grants Commission of India recognises them as well.
• Privileges and immunities. The Central Government may extend privileges and immunities to the university, its President and academic staff under the United Nations (Privileges and Immunities) Act, 1947, the law India uses for international organisations.

How Is South Asian University Governed?

SAU is run by a regional board, not by an Indian ministry. Power sits in three places, and the Act names each one.

The Governing Board

The Governing Board is the apex body. It has two members from each member state and the President as an ex officio member. Members are chosen from distinguished persons of the region, serve a three-year term and cannot hold office for more than two consecutive terms. The board elects its own Chairperson and is responsible for all policy and direction. In December 2023, for example, its chair was Prof. Dev Raj Adhikari, the chairman of Nepal’s University Grants Commission.

The President

The President is the university’s Chief Executive Officer, appointed by the Governing Board and holding office at its pleasure. The President supervises the university’s affairs, implements the board’s policy and appoints the principal officers. An Executive Council and an Academic Council support the President.

The Visitor

The Act makes the Foreign Minister of the country holding the SAARC chair the Visitor of the university. This is the clearest sign that SAU belongs to SAARC rather than to India alone: an Indian central university has the President of India as Visitor.

The leadership record shows how the system has worked in practice:

• Prof. G.K. Chadha served as the first President from 7 March 2011 until his death on 1 March 2014.
• Dr Kavita A. Sharma served from 2014 to 2019.
• Acting heads ran the university for several years after that.
• Prof. K.K. Aggarwal, founding Vice-Chancellor of Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, was appointed at the board’s 11th meeting in Kathmandu on 18 and 19 December 2023 and took charge on 27 December 2023 as the third regular President.

Who Pays for SAU and Who Studies There?

India carries most of the cost. Under the founding arrangement, India provides the capital cost, including the Maidan Garhi campus built through the Ministry of External Affairs, while all member states share the operating costs in agreed proportions. The Agreement also lets SAU raise money from foundations, donors and other sources.

The student and staff design follows from the regional mission:

• students come mainly from the eight SAARC countries, and their tuition is heavily subsidised;
• students from outside SAARC can be admitted on full cost recovery;
• teachers are mostly from SAARC countries, with up to 20 percent allowed from elsewhere;
• the university concentrates on postgraduate and research programmes, with a long-term plan of 12 postgraduate faculties and an undergraduate faculty;
• at full strength it is planned for 5,000 students and 500 teachers.

Admission runs through an entrance test held across the SAARC countries, which the university presents as the fair way to select from eight education systems at once.

What Problems Has South Asian University Faced?

SAU’s problems mirror SAARC’s. A university owned by eight governments needs those governments to pay on time, appoint board members and meet, and SAARC as an organisation has been stuck for years. The causes of that stalemate are covered in the note on regional cooperation through SAARC and BIMSTEC.

Three issues dominate the public record:

• Money. Reports in 2023 pointed to member countries not paying their dues, which squeezed running budgets and student stipends.
• Leadership. After 2019 the university went several years without a regular President, and the 11th Governing Board meeting of December 2023 was the board’s first in-person meeting since the Covid-19 pandemic.
• Campus unrest. In 2022 and 2023 students protested over stipends and facilities, and the administration suspended or expelled several students and took action against faculty members who objected to the process.

There is a fairer way to read this than “a failed project”. The things India controls, the campus and the capital money, were delivered. The things that need eight governments to agree, the running budget and the board’s routine, are where the strain shows. That is SAARC’s story in miniature.

South Asian University Today

SAU is now settled on its own campus and has a regular President again. The university says it moved fully to Maidan Garhi in 2023 after receiving the building’s occupancy certificate, and on 24 February 2026 it opened admissions for the 2026-27 session, listing new laboratories, lecture halls and research facilities added during 2025-26.

Its larger fate depends on SAARC. As long as the summit process stays stalled, SAU leans heavily on India’s support, which strengthens its campus but weakens its claim to be a jointly owned institution. That fits India’s Neighbourhood First policy, under which India often works through projects it can fund on its own. For the organisation behind it, see the notes on SAARC countries and India in SAARC, and for the shift in India’s regional focus, the BIMSTEC note.

How to Study South Asian University for Exams

SAU belongs to GS Paper II under India and its neighbourhood and regional groupings, and to Prelims as a fact about SAARC institutions. Mains does not ask about SAU by name; it asks about SAARC’s health, and SAU is a concrete example to cite. Mains 2016 GS Paper II asked whether “increasing cross-border terrorist attacks in India and growing interference in the internal affairs of several member-states by Pakistan are not conducive for the future of SAARC“, and an SAU example fits neatly there. In the Prelims question bank, International Relations makes up 104 of the 1,403 questions, the set to search for SAARC and BIMSTEC questions.

Revision facts:

• Agreement signed 4 April 2007, at the 14th SAARC Summit in New Delhi.
• Idea mooted at the 13th SAARC Summit, Dhaka, 2005.
• South Asian University Act, 2008 is Act No. 8 of 2009, dated 11 January 2009.
• First session August 2010; permanent campus at Maidan Garhi from 2023.
• Governing Board: two members per member state plus the President.
• The Visitor is the Foreign Minister of the SAARC chair country.
• India pays the capital cost; members share running costs.

Common confusions:

• SAU vs a central university. SAU rests on a treaty given force by an Act; a central university rests on an Act alone.
• SAU vs Nalanda University. Nalanda, at Rajgir in Bihar, grew out of the East Asia Summit process; SAU grew out of SAARC.
• Agreement year vs Act year. The Agreement is from 2007; the Act is called 2008 but carries a January 2009 date.

For the ancient namesake of the other regional university, see Nalanda University. SAU is a small topic with a large lesson: regional institutions are only as strong as the regional grouping behind them. If you can explain why India built the campus while SAARC struggled to fund the classrooms, you understand both SAU and the state of South Asian cooperation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Practice Questions

Prelims

1. Consider the following statements about South Asian University: 1. It was established under an agreement signed by SAARC member states in 2007. 2. The President of India is its Visitor. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

• (a) 1 only
• (b) 2 only
• (c) Both 1 and 2
• (d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer: (a) The Visitor is the Foreign Minister of the country currently chairing SAARC.

2. The Governing Board of South Asian University consists of:

• (a) One member from each SAARC member state
• (b) Two members from each SAARC member state and the President of the University
• (c) Nominees of India’s Ministry of Education only
• (d) The SAARC Secretary General and eight foreign secretaries

Answer: (b) The Act provides for two members from each member state plus the President.

3. Consider the following statements: 1. India bears the capital cost of South Asian University. 2. Article 7 of the SAU Agreement provides for mutual recognition of its degrees in SAARC countries. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

• (a) 1 only
• (b) 2 only
• (c) Both 1 and 2
• (d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer: (c) India pays capital costs and Article 7 deals with recognition of degrees.

4. The idea of a South Asian University was first put forward at which SAARC Summit?

• (a) 12th Summit, Islamabad
• (b) 13th Summit, Dhaka
• (c) 14th Summit, New Delhi
• (d) 16th Summit, Thimphu

Answer: (b) India’s Prime Minister mooted it at the 13th Summit in Dhaka in 2005.

5. The permanent campus of South Asian University is located at:

• (a) Rajgir
• (b) Maidan Garhi, New Delhi
• (c) Kathmandu
• (d) Akbar Bhawan, Chanakyapuri

Answer: (b) The university moved from Akbar Bhawan to its permanent Maidan Garhi campus in 2023.

Mains

1. Do you think that BIMSTEC is a parallel organisation like the SAARC? What are the similarities and dissimilarities between the two? How are Indian foreign policy objectives realized by forming this new organisation? (10 marks, 150 words) Previous year: Mains 2022, GS Paper II.
2. South Asian University reflects both the promise and the limits of SAARC. Discuss. (15 marks, 250 words)
3. Examine how the South Asian University Act, 2008 gives effect to an international agreement in Indian law. (10 marks, 150 words)
4. How can educational institutions serve as instruments of India’s neighbourhood policy? Illustrate with South Asian University and Nalanda University. (15 marks, 250 words)
5. What governance and funding reforms would make South Asian University sustainable? (10 marks, 150 words)