'UGC, AICTE merger may not come about till 2019'

The proposed merger of the two apex bodies for higher education - the UGC and the AICTE - may not come about before 2019 as it has been shelved till the Narendra Modi government gets a majority in the upper house of Parliament, an informed source has said.

The Human Resource Development Ministry had last year proposed to fuse the University Grants Commission (UGC) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) into the Higher Education Empowerment Regulation Agency (HEERA).

A ministry source however told IANS that since the establishing HEERA will require approval in both houses of Parliament, the government may wait till it has majority in the Rajya Sabha.

"This is one of the political factors. Apart from this, the framework of the body is still being worked upon. But the idea of bringing it before the Parliament has been postponed for now," the source said.

The proposed agency may have two Vice Chairpersons to look after the work which at present come under the UGC and the AICTE.

UGC is a statutory body established to accord degrees and grants and to set up quality benchmarks for the higher education institutes, while AICTE, also a statutory body, came up to oversee setting up of technical institutes and their quality.

--IANS

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