By Finney Duraisun K, Chief Steward, Shantha Group of Companies
I am not an academic. What I do is sit in rooms with people who run institutions — principals, directors, IQAC coordinators — and over the last year the same conversation has repeated itself in different towns. A file is opened. Inside it is a plan built around Binary Accreditation: committees named, criteria mapped, a timeline working backwards from a launch date. In one college a consultant had already been paid for a two-day workshop on the new framework. In another, an IQAC coordinator asked me quietly whether her institution had missed the window while she was on maternity leave.
I did not have an answer for her, so I went and read the notices. This post is what I found. Every date and every link below was checked on 11 September 2026. Where the wording is the evidence, I have quoted it rather than summarised it, so you can verify me.
The correction
As at 11 September 2026, the most recent BAF/MBGL document published on NAAC's home page is a Public Notice dated 22 April 2026, listed there as "Validity Extension Notification". Its first sentence reads: "As per Dr. Radhakrishnan Committee recommendations, NAAC has proposed to launch the Basic (Binary) Accreditation followed by Maturity-Based Graded Levels (MBGL) Accreditation." Later in the same three-paragraph notice: such institutions "may also opt for Basic Accreditation to be launched soon."
Has proposed to launch. To be launched soon. That is NAAC's own Director, over the Director's signature block, in April 2026 — twelve months after the April–May 2025 window NAAC itself last named for the launch.
One thing to disclose about that document, because you will find it if you check: the notice reads 22 April 2026 on its face, but the PDF's internal creation timestamp and the server's last-modified header are both 3 June 2026. I cannot explain the gap. It does not change a word of the text.
The chronology
- 27 January 2024 — The Executive Committee's 104th meeting. The press release states that "the Binary accreditation will be implemented in the next four months" and "the Maturity based Graded levels will be implemented by December 2024." Note: NAAC's own home-page link to this release returns HTTP 404 as at 11 September 2026. The copy that loads is hosted by UGC, with NAAC named as the PDF's author and a creation timestamp of 27 January 2024.
- 29 June 2024 — NAAC Reforms 2024: Important Announcement. IIQA applications under RAF accepted "until 30th June 2024 (6.00 PM)" — though the same notice lets institutions already in the process "go ahead for A & A process under the current RAF". And: "HEIs who are not accredited shall apply for Binary accreditation as and when it is launched."
- On or before 2 July 2024 — A FAQ on Binary Accreditation is posted (the file carries no date; I am dating it by the server's last-modified header). Asked when the manual can be seen, the answer is "You are requested to kindly check the NAAC website for further updates." Asked when the IIQA window reopens, institutions are referred to the website again. That file is still live at that URL today, still carrying the same 2 July 2024 timestamp.
- 4 August 2024 — The Ministry of Education, via PIB: "it is proposed to launch the Binary Accreditation in the next couple of months."
- 29 August 2024 — Third NAAC announcement, two sentences long. Institutions asking to shift from RAF to BAF are told to "kindly await for BAF and procedural details to be hosted on the NAAC website."
- 29 November 2024 — A public notice on Re-Assessment opens a limited RAF route for grade improvement, "a onetime measure… before the launch of Basic (Binary) Accreditation Framework (BAF)", closing 31 January 2025. If you took that window, you were working under RAF well after June 2024.
- 10 February 2025 — Important Information to HEIs. This is the document behind the "early 2025" claim, and what it actually says is: "NAAC has proposed to launch the Basic (Binary) Accreditation in April-May 2025." Proposed, in the future tense, in February. The same notice provides that HEIs continuing under RAF will be assessed by peer teams in "Online mode" for colleges and "Hybrid mode" for universities — so RAF assessment was still being scheduled.
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2 September 2025 — A public notice on unauthorised consultancy. NAAC warns against "institutions/ agencies / individuals" advising HEIs "on the proposed Basic (Binary) Accreditation", and states that unauthorised use of material from "the proposed BAF/MBGL Manuals" will attract legal action. The file is named
Basic_Binary_Accreditation_Framework_BAF.pdf; a principal clicking it hoping for the framework gets this instead. - 5 December 2025 and 22 April 2026 — The validity-extension clause, rewritten twice. In June 2024 it covered validity expiring from 1 July 2024, with three months after MBGL launch. In December 2025 the window start moved back to 27 January 2024. In April 2026 the cushion grew from three months to six. Both later notices say "has proposed to launch". An extension measured from the launch of an unlaunched framework has no end date yet.
What the site itself shows
The home page footer reads "Updated on 10-Sep-2026", and the recruitment page carries a vacancy circular closing 9 September 2026 — so this is a maintained site, not an abandoned one. On that maintained site, as at 11 September 2026: the Assessment and Accreditation page still publishes the CGPA table, 3.51–4.00 A++ down to "<= 1.50 D Not accredited", "With Effect From July 2017", and a search of that page for "binary", "MBGL" and "maturity" returns nothing. The Manuals page lists RAF-era manuals only. The Apply Online page offers a full set of RAF application materials — IIQA formats, instructions to HEIs, self-declaration formats, sample IIQA files for Cycles 1 to 4, data templates, DVV SOPs, and the fee structure in force from 1 April 2023 — and nothing at all for BAF or MBGL; the word "binary" does not appear on that page once. Nor does it carry any notice telling a reader whether the RAF IIQA window is open or shut. The newest results on the Accreditation Results page are those of the 265th Standing Committee, 12 December 2025, and they are recorded in CGPA and letter grades.
Where I have to stop
Four honest limits, because the point of this post is that you can trust it.
I could not check the HEI portal. assessmentonline.naac.gov.in resolves in DNS but would not accept a connection at all on 11 September 2026 — not from the machine used to research this post, and not from a connection here in Tamil Nadu the same day. In both cases naac.gov.in itself answered in under a second from the same machines. The portal sits on a different, commercially hosted network, so the main site loading tells you nothing about it. I do not know whether that is geo-restriction, filtering, or an outage, and I am not going to guess. So I cannot tell you what window is or is not open inside the portal — try it yourself, and if it opens for you, what it says there outranks what I have written here.
I cannot tell you that NAAC has published nothing since 22 April 2026 — only that nothing later on BAF or MBGL appears on the home page, the Notifications and Announcements columns, Press & Media, Archive, Manuals or Apply Online as at 11 September 2026. NAAC has previously communicated with institutions through IMS and email, and I cannot see those.
I cannot tell you why the launch has not happened. No document I found gives a reason or a revised date. Four stated timelines have now passed. There is separately a pending Bill — the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, introduced in Lok Sabha on 15 December 2025 and referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee the next day, where it still sits — which would create an Accreditation Council. The PIB release on it names the UGC, AICTE and NCTE Acts for repeal and does not mention NAAC at all. I mention it as pending legislation, not as an explanation, because nothing in the record makes it one.
And I did not check the parliamentary record properly. If a question on the launch status has been asked and answered, I did not find it, and that is a limitation of my search rather than a finding.
What to do this month
Work from your own accreditation validity, not from a launch date. If your grade was set to expire between 27 January 2024 and the launch of MBGL, the 22 April 2026 notice extends it by a maximum of six months after that launch — read the clause yourself, print it, and keep it in the file with the date on it.
Do not restructure your IQAC around criteria you have not seen. There is no BAF manual on NAAC's Manuals page, no BAF form on Apply Online, and NAAC has said in writing that the manuals are its intellectual property. Anyone showing you "the new criteria weightages" is showing you something whose provenance you should ask about before your college pays for it.
Keep doing the RAF-era work that still has an addressee: AQAR, documentation discipline, the data you would need for any framework. The 22 April 2026 notice ends by saying institutions "should continue to maintain and improve quality through their IQAC cells." That is the instruction NAAC's most recent notice actually gives.
Check the Notifications column on naac.gov.in yourself, monthly, and date what you find. Not a blog. Not a WhatsApp forward. Not this post either, after a while — it is dated 11 September 2026, and it will go stale the day NAAC publishes the manual.
Disclosure: I run a publishing house. We sell books to colleges. We do not sell accreditation consultancy, and we hold no BAF manual, because nobody outside NAAC has one.