Smriti Irani puts AAP govt in a corner for not sharing higher education plan

In what was an indirect dig at the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-run Delhi government, Human Resource Development minister Smriti Irani said that Delhi is the only state which is yet to send its higher education plan to the Centre. The minister said this while replying to a query during a press conference at the National Capital,

Friday

Every state is expected to send a detailed higher education plan under the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD).

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While responding to a question on why New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) and Delhi government school students are not receiving NCERT Urdu books, the HRD minister said that they have already shared the copy right of books with the Kejriwal government.

"At our end, we have given the copy right of books to the Delhi government. This way they can print the books and distribute accordingly. There's no dearth of books in our stocks. So without commenting on Delhi government's Special Rights, I would just like to request them to look into this," said Irani.

She further went on to say, "Through RUSA, we are trying to strengthen the institutions in public arena. In this context, the Delhi government has till date not sent us its higher education plan for RUSA. In the entire country, probably Delhi is the only state that has not shared it's higher education plan."

All queries on this matter to sent to AAP member/s remained unanswered at the time of filing this copy.

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Through RUSA, the MHRD aims to provide strategic funding to higher educational institutes across the country to improve the overall quality of education. The government has set aside Rs 25,000 crore under RUSA scheme during the 12th Plan period (2012-17). The scheme is limited to government-aided and state-run colleges.

The central funding (in the ratio of 60:40 for general category States, 90:10 for special category states and 100% for union territories) would be norm based and outcome dependent.

Through RUSA, the MHRD has set up two New Model Colleges at Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. It also aims to improve the infrastructure, research, faculty training, etc.

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