HRD ministry cautions UGC chief Prakash for speaking against govt scheme

New Delhi: The HRD Ministry has pulled up UGC chairman Ved Prakash for speaking against a higher education scheme before a Parliamentary panel recently and asked him to take prior permission to express views that are contrary to the government’s policies.  In a strong letter, the ministry cautioned him for not following the set convention in such meetings, sources said. The letter said that the officials present should have been seen as a cohesive group, supporting the programmes of the government, and not as a disjointed unit. Prakash had contended before a Parliamentary Standing Committee meeting on 26 May that the Ministry-piloted Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) programme was performing the same task of funding state institutes for upgrade like UGC and therefore was undermining the latter’s role. He had also argued that since the bulk of funds is now going to RUSA, UGC’s endeavour to push for research and innovation could be hampered. His views did not go down well with the Ministry. The UGC chairman’s use of certain words during his presentation was also considered inappropriate by the Ministry while reprimanding him, the sources said. Pointing to the set of convention in such meetings, the letter asked him to be careful about these things for future interactions with the Parliamentary bodies. Officials said Prakash had visited the Ministry later to clear his stand on the presentations made by him. HRD Minister Smriti Irani, who was in China during the standing committee meeting, was briefed by the ministry officials soon after her return. Meanwhile, hitting out at the Ministry, Congress spokesperson R P N Singh said the developments were not in the right direction. “The developments, whether with regards to IIT director and now the chairman of UGC, are not in the right direction. The education ministry’s stand is limited to narrow confines of a political ideology,” he said at the AICC briefing. Education should be left to educationists, he added. PTI