A proposed bill by the education ministry that envisages a Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) with the power to shut down institutions citing infrastructure or faculty shortages will remove the control of the states over education and fuel privatisation, a parliamentary panel has said.

The parliamentary standing committee on education, headed by Congress member Digvijaya Singh, presented its report in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday on the review of education standards, accreditation process, research, examination reforms and academic environment in deemed and private universities and other higher education institutions.

The report examined the progress of the creation of the HECI as a single regulatory body replacing the UGC, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and the National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE).

"The proposed HECI bill will hold significant power, including the ability to grant degree-awarding authority and close institutions failing to meet standards. This removes state control and could lead to the closure of institutions in rural areas that suffer from infrastructure or faculty shortages. It would indirectly fuel privatisation, especially in rural areas," the committee said.

The panel recommended that a simplified hierarchy of regulatory bodies would be more effective. It suggested that the education ministry should ensure that any such unified regulatory body must have adequate representation for all states and there should not be excess centralisation.

The committee also underlined how state universities, which educate over 90 per cent of the student population, were caught between national and state-level regulations.

UGC rule protest

The education ministers of six Opposition-ruled states on Wednesday objected to the UGC's draft regulations on the appointment of teachers in universities and colleges.

The ministers of Himachal Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Jharkhand met in Bengaluru and adopted a resolution to demand the immediate withdrawal of the regulations and framing of rules in collaboration with the states in the spirit of "cooperative federalism".

They urged the Centre and the UGC to assign a pivotal role to states in the appointment of vice-chancellors in public universities.