Unnat Maharashtra Abhiyan (UMA) is a project of the Ministry of Higher and Technical Education. Its mandate is to build an independent and public knowledge infrastructure for the state of Maharashtra which will bring socio-economic and cultural development for its people, especially those in the bottom 80% of the socio-economic strata. UMA aligns closely with the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA) mechanism of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, whose vision is to bring about "transformational change in rural development processes by leveraging knowledge institutions to help build the architecture of an Inclusive India" (UBA) .
UBA is being operationalised through the UMA, since they both share the same objectives :
- To seek some alignment of curricula and research with regional development needs
- Re-emphasize field-work and case-studies as an important pedagogy
- Provide a formal mechanism for local bodies such as Zilla Parishads, Gram Panchayats, etc. to access a regional engineering college, including the IITs, for its knowledge needs, and to obtain funding and data for the same.