India Begins Sweeping Crackdown on Higher-Education Regulator

New Delhi — In an unprecedented move at the behest of India’s new education minister, the country’s main investigative agency has launched a sweeping crackdown on its regulator of engineering and management colleges, filing charges of corruption against the regulator’s chairman and arresting a top official in the act of taking a bribe to grant recognition to an engineering school, The Hindustan Times reported.

The education minister, Kapil Sibal, has said he is serious about regulatory reform since taking office, in May, and Thursday’s crackdown seems to prove it, because his approval was required for the Central Bureau of Investigation to raid the offices of the regulator’s chairman, the Indian Express reported. The regulator’s offices in four cities were also raided.

The bureau filed corruption charges against R.A.Yadav, chairman of the All India Council for Technical Education, the regulator, and three other top officials accused of demanding bribes to allow an increase in seats at an engineering college. The regulator’s approval is required before any technical institute, whether public or private, can offer degree courses.

The regulator, one of 16 in India, has often been accused of corruption, and its officers across India have been accused of approving colleges with poor facilities in exchange for money. Many engineering schools have also been started by politicians who, it is alleged, are complicit in the bribery process. Many colleges themselves have been accused of taking money, euphemistically referred to here as “capitation fees,” to admit students to engineering courses that are in high demand. —Shailaja Neelakantan