A proposed Bill to replace the University Grants Commission (UGC) with a Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) , faced opposition even before the Bill was tabled in Parliament, on Monday.
The issue was raised in Lok Sabha during Question Hour by Trinamool Congress member Prof. Sugata Bose, who sought to know how the proposed body would be better than the UGC . Union Human Resources Development Minister Prakash Javadekar informed the House that the Bill would be tabled in the House soon and briefly spoke on the salient feature of the Bill. Claiming that higher education sector had expanded over the years and that over three crore students were pursuing college education in the country, he said the new body would have more autonomy than the UGC and would be empowered to take punitive actions against institutes that don’t follow guidelines.
Deputy Speaker M. Thambidurai, speaking in his capacity as an MP, feared the new body was Centre’s plan to take away higher education from the State’s list since financial powers would now stay with the Central government. “Why not strengthen the UGC instead,” he asked. AIMIM member Asaduddin Owaisi too echoed Dr. Thambi Durai’s sentiments. He also sought to know if reservation policy would be followed in the new body.
Dr. Thambi Durai also noted the HECI was first conceptualised by Kapil Sibal, the HRD Minister during UPA’s term. Accusing both UPA and NDA governments of “infringing State’s rights,” he dubbed the proposal as “new wine in old bottle.”
Mr. Javadekar said the proposed Bill was different from the UPA’s version, which sought a higher education body that would eliminate bodies such as AICTE and MCI too. “The HECI will have more autonomy than UGC. States rights won’t be infringed. There will be no change in reservation policy at all,” Mr. Javadekar asserted.
He requested the members to wait until the Bill was introduced and give it a chance since it was drafted after taking inputs from as many as 10,000 people.
