The UPA government’s ambitious push for higher education reforms is set to be undone as the human resource development ministry is not hopeful of pushing through any of its dozen odd bills in the Winter Session of Parliament scheduled to begin from December 5.
The forthcoming session is expected to be the last working session ahead of general polls scheduled for next year effectively ending any chances of getting these pending bills through.
Over a dozen bills of the HRD ministry are pending despite the fact that HRD minister Dr M.M. Pallam Raju and former HRD minister Kapil Sibal had worked overtime to placate Congress MPs and Opposition members during the last three years of UPA-2 rule.
Important bills like the like Foreign Education Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations) Bill 2010, the Accreditation Bill, the high profile National Academic Depository (Amendment) Bill, 2011, and National Council for Higher Education and Research 2011 are still pending before Parliament. Several of these bills are pending before Parliament in some cases for over two-three years.
While during his tenure Mr Sibal was unable to create a consensus on these bills and was forced to go slow on the issue. Dr Raju, ever since taking over the ministry, is understood to have engaged in several rounds of consultation with MPs to ensure that these bills are passed in Parliament.
Though the minister had wanted these bills to be passed in the Monsoon Session, he was unable to do so as Parliament lost several working days due to disruptions caused by various reasons.
Several of these bills have come under repeated sharp attacks from the Opposition and ruling party members ever since higher education reform were initiated during the UPA-2 regime.
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HRD ministry may not push bills
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