As a former member of the University Grants Commission (UGC), I would not shed a tear on the abolition of this apex higher education body proposed by the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan (VBSA) bill. The UGC is a broken, dysfunctional and counterproductive system. I would have happily supported the new VBSA architecture if the UGC was replaced by a new regulatory architecture promised by the New Education Policy (NEP), 2020: “Independent and empowered” bodies that institutionalise “checks-and-balances in the system, minimise conflicts of interest, and eliminate concentrations of power”.

Sadly, the proposed bill, currently under review by the Standing Committee of the Parliament, does exactly the opposite. The new regulatory architecture it proposes is a recipe for concentration of power that can only lead to centralisation, bureaucratisation and commercialisation of higher education — possibly worse than the present UGC system, hard as it is to imagine that.

Between 2010 and 2013, as an honorary member of the Commission, I had a ringside view of all that was wrong with higher education management. The UGC was as corrupt and inefficient as the infamous PWD or DDA, with rampant conflicts of interest. Steered by academic bureaucrats who would stand up to receive a phone call from the joint secretary in the ministry, its autonomy existed only on paper. Even if it had some well-meaning professors on committees, the institution had little capacity or domain expertise needed to regulate the vast ocean of colleges, universities, deemed universities, institutions of national importance and whatnots. The then minister Kapil Sibal tried to clean the system by appointing some members with academic credentials and integrity, but the changes we could bring about........

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