Sridhar Babu Opposes UGC Norms Again

Telangana has vowed to resist the UGC Draft Regulations – 2025, which seek to curtail the autonomy of states in higher education, until they are either amended or withdrawn, announced IT & industries minister Duddilla Sridhar Babu, while reaffirming that the state will not back down in its fight to protect the federal spirit. 

Addressing the media here on Friday, Sridhar Babu revealed that six states came together against the draft at a meeting in Bengaluru on August 5. A joint resolution was passed and submitted to the Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan. The battle is far from over and Kerala will now host the next strategic meeting to mount pressure, he said.

He asserted that the Telangana government will not relent until the Centre either engages in meaningful dialogue with the states or scraps the draft regulations entirely. Telangana invests Rs 4,000 crore annually in higher



education, yet the Union government is seeking to strip state authority, which is an ‘unconstitutional overreach’ that directly violates the spirit of federalism. The minister lambasted the Centre’s proposal to introduce a centralised national entrance test for undergraduate admissions, calling it as an exclusionary move that will discourage students from pursuing higher education. 

Telangana boasts a Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) of 40 per cent—far above the national average of 28 per cent and such policies threaten to reverse this progress. The fear of failure in a standardized test could drive thousands of students away from college education, he cautioned. Another major issue is the Centre’s blatant attempt to centralise the appointment of vice-chancellors, eliminating state representation. He termed this as ‘an authoritarian bid to seize control over state-run universities’.