MUMBAI: The University of Mumbai (MU) has received invites from the desert kingdoms of the UAE and separately from Dubai to set up campuses there.

Indian universities need permission from the University Grants Commission to set up offshore campuses. University vice-chancellor Sanjay Deshmukh, also a member of the committee that drafted the recent version of the Maharashtra Public Universities Act, has been working to include the clause to permit universities to have an offshore presence.

A budgetary provision of Rs 20 lakh has been set aside for the purpose, Deshmukh said on Monday, while announcing the university's budget for 2016-17. The inviting countries will set up the campuses and the university will have to conduct academic activities there.

For its own students who wish to study abroad, the university will apply for membership to the college board code. This will give Mumbai University students information access to 6,000 American colleges. "We will take more memberships of European and south-east Asian countries where our students head. This will put them in a comfort zone in terms of accessing information," said Deshmukh.