New Delhi, March 25: Union human resource development (HRD) minister Kapil Sibal has urged Indian industrialists figuring among the Forbes list of the world’s top 10 billionaires to invest in education.
Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani is placed fourth on the list. He has already met Sibal on two occasions regarding a university conforming to global standards that he wants to set up.
Sibal also wanted lending rates for loans to private players in education to be reduced.
Sibal said: “ It’s a contradiction. If education is charity, then why do private players and organisations have to borrow at commercial rates of interest?” He also suggested the rates of interest should be lowered and the duration of these loans should be raised from the existing seven years to around 20 years.
“ To expand the higher education sector, you cannot rely on the government alone. We need to open it up to foreign institutions, private players and industry,” he added.
The minister also called for changes in the tax regime, wherein private players investing in education should be given “ tax breaks” to encourage them to invest in the sector.
Sibal elaborated on the easier financing options for educational investors. He said the ministry was working with the Planning Commission on setting up an Education Finance Corporation to provide loans for infrastructure development and expansion of educational institutions. This would also help students refinance loans.
The corporation will give access to financing of educational institutions on the lines of soft loans or at priority sector lending rate, which is not available to the sector at present.
Criticising the government’s thrust on the private sector, former University Grants Commission chairperson Yashpal said: “ In the past 15 years, the private sector has entered in a big way into technical engineering and management — and they’ve created a mess.” “ The private sector has been investing in education and looking at it as a business. The government’s own funding in higher education has been going down over the years. This should go up,” he added.
As for Sibal’s proposal to provide loans for students to study in these institutes, Yashpal said: “ How can a student from a family whose monthly income is about Rs 10,000 dare to take a loan of Rs 15 lakh to study in a private institute?” Allaying fears of foreign education providers coming into India for profit, Sibal said: “ They have agreed not to repatriate surplus money generated from education activities here.” Asked why would they be willing to invest in education here if they could not take back profits, he said: “ Such institutions come to India for its quality human resource.”
—Agencies