Under which section of the UGC Act, Inter-University Centres (IUCs) were…

Section 12 of the UGC Act, 1956 lays down the statutory functions of the University Grants Commission as a series of lettered clauses, each assigning the Commission one distinct power — inquiring into finances, disbursing grants, advising government, gathering information, or building institutions. Correctly citing a UGC power means matching the exact clause performing that specific function, not any clause that broadly concerns universities.

Clause 12(ccc) empowers the Commission to 'establish, in accordance with the regulations made under this Act, institutions for providing common facilities, services and programmes' for universities. It is precisely under this institution-building clause that India's Inter-University Centres (IUCs) — such as the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA, Pune) and the Inter-University Accelerator Centre (IUAC, New Delhi) — were established, giving universities that cannot individually afford advanced infrastructure shared access to it.

The other lettered clauses assign the Commission different, narrower powers:

• Clause 12(a) only allows the Commission to inquire into the financial needs of universities — a funding-assessment power, not an institution-creation power.

• Section 12-B restricts UGC grants to universities established after 1972 unless the Commission specifically declares them fit to receive support — a grant-eligibility gate, not a power to build shared centres.

• Clause 12(h) limits the Commission to collecting information on university education in India and other countries — an information-gathering power, not an institution-building one.

So among the offered clauses, only 12(ccc) grants the institution-building power actually exercised in creating the IUCs — matching UGC's own published record of the Inter-University Centres.