Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal will be hoping to use his new-found clout in the party and the council of ministers to lobby support for some crucial and important bills of his ministry during the Monsoon Session of Parliament, which kicks off on Monday.
Sources state that over the past few weeks, Mr Sibal has worked overtime to placate Congress MPs and Opposition members to ensure that their queries regarding various pending bills are resolved and his education reform agenda gets is through.
The ministry is hopeful of passage of these bills as the minister himself has held several rounds of discussion with the parliamentary standing committee on HRD. Mr Sibal is also understood to have briefed the chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on HRD, Mr Oscar Fernandes, on various bills and assured him that pending issues will be resolved.
The important bills that are scheduled to come up are the National Council for Higher Education and Research (NCHER) Bill, 2011, Universities for Innovation Bill, 2011 and National Academic Depository (Amendment) Bill, 2011, which will be introduced in Parliament while the Educational Tribunals Bill, 2010 will be taken up for passage during the session. Several of these bills were earlier opposed by even his own partymen along with the BJP.
The Tribunals Bill, which has been passed by the Lok Sabha, was deferred in the Rajya Sabha during the last Monsoon Session after it came under sharp attack from the Opposition, including some ruling party members. Mr Sibal had initiated a dialogue with the health ministry on its objections to inclusion of medical education under the ambit of the NCHER Bill. It is understood that he had assured health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad that the independent functioning of medical institutes will be protected and officials from both the HRD and health ministry will be included in the entire process of accreditation and approval of medical colleges in the country.
The Universities for Innovation Bill had also been delayed after the Planning Commission had sought clarification on the proposed universities.
Once these bills are through, the HRD minister is likely to take up the still Foreign Education Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations) Bill 2010, which aims to control the entry and operations of foreign educators in the country.