Bihar govt opposes Governor’s nod to four-year graduation courses, says regularising sessions top priority

In a letter to chancellors of all state universities on June 15, state Additional Chief Secretary (Education) K K Pathak said: “It appears that… the Hon’ble Chancellor has been pleased to approve the Ordinance and Regulations for the Bachelor of Arts/Science/Commerce (Honours) 4-Year Programme under Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) as per UGC Regulation (Curriculum and Credit Framework for Undergraduate Programmes) for its introduction in the Universities of Bihar under relevant provisions of the Bihar State Universities Act, 1976, Patna Universities Act, 1976, Nalanda Open Universities Act, 1995 and Aryabhatta Knowledge University Act, 2008 as amended up-to- date”.

Pathak, however, cited several constraints with the state universities in starting the four-year graduation courses and stressed that regularising the delayed sessions should be the top priority. “It may be worth mentioning that the capacity of the Universities to conduct a new programme has to be seen in totality, particularly in terms of their ability to conduct and successfully complete the existing ongoing programmes,” he said.

He marked a copy of this letter to Balendra Shukla, Officer on Special Duty (Judicial) to the Governor’s Secretariat.

“The State Government is of the view that the Universities of Bihar, presently, do not have the capacity in terms of faculty, support staff and necessary classroom infrastructure to take up any new programme, given that their existing regular courses are running behind schedule. The delay with respect to the existing 3-year graduate programmes extends from few months to more than a year. The post-graduate programmes are even more delayed, Pathak added.

The additional chief secretary stressed that the state government was taking “every step to ensure that the Universities become up to date with respect to their academic calendar within next few months”.

“And for that purpose, it proposes to issue an examination schedule, vide an official Gazette, for all the Universities under Section 30 of the Bihar State University Act, 1976. It may further be added that the Universities have to adhere to the said Gazette notification and the timelines mentioned therein. The Gazette notification shall contain all existing on-going graduate programmes, post-graduate programmes, vocational courses and other programmes being conducted by the Universities,” read the letter, adding that the government expected the Universities to “strictly adhere to the Gazette notification likely to be issued shortly and not to conduct any examination not duly notified by the State Government”.

Clearly shooting down the move by Governor R V Arlekar, who is also the Chancellor, to start the four-year graduation courses from the upcoming academic session, the education department’s letter said: “Thus, the State Government does not support the aforementioned four-year programme. In the light of the above, the State Government hereby requests the Hon’ble Chancellor’s office to reconsider their letter no. 687 dated 15.05.2023”.

The Governor’s Secretariat has not yet reacted to Pathak’s letter. Pathak too did not respond to queries by The Indian Express on the matter.

This is the first instance of a disagreement between the state government and the Governor after JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar aligned with the Mahagathbandhan last August after having snapped the party’s ties with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Last month, former BJP state president Dr Sanjay Jaiswal had said the state government had not “provided helicopter to the Governor for his West Champaran trip”. Bihar Finance Minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary had responded saying that the helicopter had some technical issues.