Parliament passes Central Universities (Amendment) Bill, 2023 paving way for establishing Sammakka Sarakka Central Tribal University in Telangana

Parliament has passed the Central Universities (Amendment) Bill, 2023 with Rajya Sabha giving assent to it today. Lok Sabha had passed the Bill last week.

The Bill will amend the Central Universities Act, 2009, which establishes central universities for teaching and research in various States. The Bill seeks to establish a Central Tribal University in Telangana which will be named ‘Sammakka Sarakka Central Tribal University’. It will provide avenues of higher education and research facilities primarily for the tribal population of India.

Replying to a debate on the Bill, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said, the University will be a centre for research on matters related to Tribal communities of the country. He rejected the allegation of opposition members that the Government is rewriting history. Speaking on dropouts in Higher Education Institutions, the Minister said the Government has analysed the dropouts in the last five years. He said, as per the analysis 1.53 percent of students in the General category, 1.51 percent in the OBC category, 1.47 percent in SC and 1.29 percent in the ST category were dropouts in IITs. The Minister said, most of the students find other options and students also leave their studies due to family and health reasons. Speaking on languages, Mr Pradhan said, all languages are national languages. He said the Government has also introduced primers in tribal languages.

Intervening in the debate, Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda said the Government is making efforts to improve educational opportunities for people from tribal communities.

M Thambidurai of AIADMK, Dola Sen of TMC, Prashanta Nanda of BJD, Sadanand Shet Tanawade of BJP, Kanakamedala Ravindra Kumar of TDP, B Lingaiah Yadav of BRS, V Vijaysai Reddy of YSRCP participated in the discussion among others.