'Will get rid of Angel tax after Cong comes to power': Rahul Gandhi
Bengaluru, Mar 18: Congress President Rahul Gandhi Monday said that angel tax goes counter to the philosophy of startups and his party would get rid of it on coming to power.
"I have been informed about the angel tax and angel tax goes counter to the philosophy of startups...we are going to get rid of this tax.
When we come to power, we will scrap it...you can call me on that one," Gandhi said.
The Congress chief was speaking to a gathering of entrepreneurs at a technology park here.
To a question on GST by a participant, Gandhi, calling it a "disaster", said the Congress, on coming to power, will work to give "one GST", which is simple and lowest tax possible.
Stating that the Congress had come up with the idea of the Goods and Services Tax with an aim to simplify things, he said the current government launched it in a hurry.
"Frankly it is a disaster. The definition of GST is one tax, so even though this government calls it a GST, it is not.
It is five different layers of taxes and it is counter productive," he said.
"We are pretty clear we are going to get rid of this GST, we are going to reform it and we are going to work to give one GST, which is simple and lowest tax possible," he said.
Also noting that the existing GST leaves out huge chunks of the Indian economy, he said some of those things are going to be brought into it.
"It is perfectly doable..." he said, adding that GST was a "self inflicted" wound by the current government and it has had a devastating effect, very much like demonetisation.
To a question on the e Commerce policy, Gandhi conceded that he had not gone into the details of the policy, but promised to look into it on coming to power.
"I haven't gone into the details of it. I have to go into the details before I comment.
I have been given a little bit of a briefing on it.
I think there are issues with warehousing in the policy, that I have been told about.
There is a balance that has to be created between the large and small players...
I don't know how the policy creates the balance, but I think we would think about in terms of being fair to all the stakeholders," he added.
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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