Bratya calls Bengal VC omission by UGC biased

Committee is expected to play key role in implementation of Modi regime’s NEP, over which state has several reservations

Bratya Basu: File picture

Subhankar Chowdhury   |   TT  |  Calcutta   |    29.12.22  : Bengal education minister Bratya Basu on Wednesday accused the University Grants Commission of bias as the vice-chancellor of not even one of the 40 universities in the state found a place on the UGC’s seven-member zonal committee for the east and the Northeast.

The committee is expected to play a key role in the implementation of the Narendra Modi regime’s contentious National Education Policy (NEP), over which Bengal has several reservations.

“The UGC has constituted 5 Zonal Committees from Vice Chancellors of Central, State, Private and Deemed to be Universities, to facilitate the universities to develop a road map for effective implementation of significant initiatives of UGC,” tweeted Basu in the afternoon.

“The Zonal Committee for North Eastern and Eastern Zone comprises 7 members – astonishingly none among them are from any of the 40 such Universities of Bengal,” he said in his post on the microblogging site.

At a NITI Aayog governing council meeting, Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had emphasised that the Centre should look into the demands of state governments “more seriously” and no policies should be forced on them, underscoring that there should be no pressure on states to implement the NEP.

An official in the state education department said it was “seriously offensive” that no VC of even premier varsities such as Jadavpur University, Presidency University, St Xavier’s University and Calcutta University found a place on the zonal committee. He said the message being sent out by the UGC was “unnecessarily political”.

“That too at a time when the President of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU) is VC of one of our foremost Universities! #Partisan UGC #dubious intentions,” added Basu in his tweet, referring to Jadavpur University vice-chancellor Suranjan Das.

Das is not only the president of the AIU but was also part of the state’s 10-member committee formed earlier this year to examine the current status of the NEP. 

In the evening, VC Das said: “I would write to the honourable chairperson of the UGC, with the request that a representative of Bengal finds a place on the committee.”