HECI Bill not to be moved in ongoing session

NEW DELHI: Amid rising political opposition to replacing UGC with a new Higher Education Commission, the Union government is learnt to have dropped plans to pilot the ambitious Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) Bill in Parliament in the ongoing Monsoon session.

The Prakash Javadekar-led Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry was pushing to get the Bill introduced in Lok Sabha in this session and was readying it for Cabinet approval but the PMO is learnt to have ruled against it, citing strong political opposition which is bound to make Parliamentary passage rather tricky.

If the HECI Bill misses the Monsoon session window, its chances will dim significantly as the only opening for its passage will be in the Winter Session which is likely to be too politically packed to make way for a new radical legislation like HECI


All-Round attack
The change comes within days of CPM’s Sitaram Yechury shooting off a strong letter to the Prime Minister opposing HECI. All other parties have already made their position known on the Bill and it is mostly unfavourable.

The Congress was quick to slam the move and both DMK’s working president M K Stalin as well as AIADMK’s M Thambidurai have also spoken out against the Bill, saying it would undermine the federal structure. A similar view has been echoed by the Kerala chief minister Pinarayai Vijayan.

The reworked HECI
The HRD ministry, meanwhile, claims that it has already addressed the concerns with changes in the draft bill which it was planning to take to Cabinet this week.

The PMO, however, shot down the move as it feels that the Bill may need to be fine-tuned further to ensure a smoother path in Parliament .

The reworked draft now says that the funding agency would be independent of the government and be set up as a society under the provisions of the HECI Act. It has also brought in a new clause allowing provision for appeal in case of penalty imposed against an errant institute by the HECI. Following a suggestion by the Ministry of Social Justice and Welfare, the ministry has tweaked the Bill to mention that the HECI will work towards the advancement of SC/STs and the socially and economically disadvantaged.

The HECI Bill seeks to overhaul the UGC comprehensively and recast it as an academic regulator that sets quality benchmarks and vest funding/grant giving powers to another independent entity. Several committees have earlier recommended a revamp of the higher education regulatory framework and a UGC revamp also finds mention on the BJP’s 2014 manifesto.