CPI(M) Polit Bureau has issued the following statements on June 30

THE Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) firmly opposes the move by the present central government to replace University Grants Commission through proposed Higher Education Commission of India (repeal of University Grants Commission Act 2018). 

It is clear that the government is in a tearing hurry to push through the proposed legislation in the monsoon session of the parliament with only ten days earmarked for discussion and receiving feedbacks on the draft Bill. Despite using the repeated rhetoric of `minimum government, maximum governance’, the draft proposes a scheme of further centralisation of the government’s role in vesting itself with the powers of  distribution of grants. The emphasis is on overregulation with shift towards outcomes divorced from the academic process involved.  The move is also aimed at further commercialisation while adopting a `one size fit all’ approach. 

Despite limitations, the UGC had some autonomy with academics being at the helm of affairs; but in the proposed legislation that fig leaf is abandoned and the entire process will be taken over by the bureaucracy and the political masters of the government itself. 

Any move which is so momentous for the nation cannot be rushed through with such unthinking speed. The Polit Bureau demands that the proposed Bill be immediately withdrawn  as has been demanded by several organisations  which are stakeholders in the future of higher education in this country.