Arjun pushes Central varsity tag for minority institutions

Minority institutions had been pleading for a long time that Central university affiliation would help them obtain grants without losing the ‘‘minority character’’. Article 30 gives the right to minority communities to set up institutions but there are other laws which often come in the way of exercise of this right.

The Ministry has already throughly studied the provisions of Article 30, the repealed Article 31 and the different clauses under Article 31(a), (b) and (c). It is only Article 30 that might need to be amended if Singh goes ahead with granting this facility to the minority institutions.

A Constitutional amendment would be hard to pull through considering the numbers the Government has in both Houses. Already, Singh has been accused by the BJP of playing to a votebank over his programmes on minority education.

Today, after the meeting of the monitoring committee, he urged the minority delegates present to meet every three months and take stock of minority education. Singh was applauded as he proposed that not only would the monitoring committee meet regularly, but also a standing committee comprising members of the minority communities would be set up to go across the country and study the problems at the grassroots level.