New Delhi, 19 March (H.S.): Congress has excoriated the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan (VBSA) Bill-2025 as a disconcerting overreach, spotlighting glaring vacancies in key regulators like UGC and AICTE unearthed by the Parliamentary Standing Committee's report, while decrying the legislation's sidelining of state consultations on a Concurrent List subject.
Congress General Secretary (Communications) and MP Jairam Ramesh articulated seven trenchant objections in an official missive, contending the draft's omission of state input flagrantly subverts federal principles. Absent a dedicated grants council—expressly envisioned in NEP 2020—funding prerogatives would migrate from academia to ministerial fiat, engendering pernicious centralization and eroding institutional independence.
Ramesh warned of bureaucratic hegemony supplanting scholarly stewardship at UGC, AICTE, and NCTE, transmuting education governance from academic ethos to administrative diktat, with ominous repercussions for autonomous bastions like IITs, IIMs, NITs, and IISERs.
Diluting UGC's consultative mandate and excising university dialogue imperatives contravenes NEP 2020's autonomy imperative, imperiling pedagogical freedom under an augured regulatory vise.
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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar
