Private Varsities Bill Hits Road Block In Kerala Cabinet, CPI Wants More Discussion

(MENAFN- IANS) Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 5 (IANS) The Kerala government's proposed Private Universities Bill hit a roadblock at the state cabinet meeting on Wednesday with the ruling LDF's second-biggest constituent - the Communist Party of India (CPI) - expressing its strong reservation to the measure.

As State Agriculture Minister and senior CPI leader P. Prasad expressed his doubts and the ramifications that will be caused to the present educational system, the Cabinet decided to defer it to hold more discussions on it, as sought by the party.

But with the CPI-M-lead Left Democratic Front ( LDF) - the highest decision-making body of the Pinarayi Vijayan government - clearing it, the present opposition to it raised by the CPI might be overlooked and it will not be long before the proposed Bill gets cleared by the cabinet.

Senior RJD leader Vargheese George said that when this issue came up at the LDF meeting, he spoke for 20 minutes against this Bill as "it is detrimental to our state's education system".

"But, since we are part of the LDF, we raised our concerns and agreed to it," he said.

Moreover, on Wednesday, Higher Education Minister R. Bindhu was out of station and was not present in the cabinet meeting.

Hence, this will be coming up at the next cabinet meeting and with the LDF already clearing it, it's just a matter of time before the foreign universities set up shop in the state.

Leader of Opposition D said they have always vouched for this Bill and before Vijayan sits down to clear it, he should render an apology to former diplomat T.P. Sreenivasan, who was beaten up by the protesting student wing activists of the CPI-M when he was going to attend a meeting here as the Vice-Chairman of the state's higher education body, that was to take up the discussion of the need for private universities in Kerala.

"We have always supported this Bill, but Vijayan and his party were all along opposing this. Now that they have decided on it, he should first go and apologise to Sreenivasan," the Congress leader said.

Sreenivasan expressed deep happiness that the state government is considering the Bill.

"This should have happened two decades back and in 2011 during the tenure of (then Chief Minister) Oommen Chandy, this had come up but due to opposition, it was put on hold. Am happy now this is going to come up," he said.

On the other hand, CPI's youth wing President N. Arun said that private universities are not ideal for Kerala and that the need of the hour is to strengthen our time-tested educational systems.

"If foreign universities come things will go out of control. We expect things on this aspect will be reconsidered. If the government goes forward, we will launch a protest," said Arun.

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