Given the high-profile higher-education sector that he has been working for from behind the scenes for almost three years, Rameshwar Pal Agarwal comes across as a reticent and media-shy person. The secretary for higher education, however, is anything but shy or soft. People who work closely with him describe him as a workaholic and a hard taskmaster.
“He has his priorities right. He works for nearly 12 hours a day, sitting in office daily till around 10 pm. He’s here on Saturdays too. He has this habit of sifting through piles of paperwork and goes about his task very meticulously,” points out an official who knows him well. Agarwal also worked on Gandhi Jayanti (October 2), a holiday for government officials, to sit with Sibal and the faculty members of the Indian Insititutes of Technology (IITs) to resolve the contentious issues of pay hikes and autonomy.
It is this temperament, perhaps, that must have kept him going amidst the turmoil that the education sector has witnessed during his tenure. Agarwal, an IAS officer of the 1972 Andhra Pradesh cadre, took over as secretary (higher education) on November 1, 2006 from Sudeep Banerjee. In these three years, many issues have roiled the education sector.
For instance, under the tenure of Arjun Singh (HRD minister before Kapil Sibal took charge this May), the higher education sector, especially the premier IITs and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), was rocked by thorny issues including the implementation of quotas for scheduled castes (SCs), scheduled tribes (STs) and other backward castes (OBCs).
And for the last six months, Agarwal has been working with another firm minister, Sibal, and his task may only have got tougher — Sibal is a lawyer and would want all details on his fingertips. To ensure that would be Agarwal and his team’s responsibility.
Sibal’s 100-day policy — which also spoke of opening up the education sector to foreign players and addressing the gross enrolment ratio (GER), besides the faculty crunch — made it appear all these were brand new ideas. However, many of these thoughts were crystallised during the time of Arjun Singh and with bodies like the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) and the Moily Committee. Agarwal was part of the strategy-making teams of these bodies which formalised the policy in all these areas, thus making Sibal’s job easier.
It has helped that Agarwal is on the board of all the larger IIMs and many other educational bodies. Besides, he is also one of the most sought after guest speakers for events by these institutes.
A graduate in mechanical engineering, Agarwal has held many state and central government positions. He was posted in Brussels as deputy chief of the Indian mission in 2002. He was also Resident Commissioner of the Andhra Pradesh government but it is his current post that has put him in the limelight.
To be fair, Agarwal is not a one-man army. He’s assisted by equally competent men — an additional secretary, four joint secretaries, one economic advisor and a deputy director general (statistics). In addition, there is one additional secretary and financial advisor, common to both departments (school and higher education).
Nevertheless, it will be a job well done when Agarwal retires on the 27th of this month. However, given his nature and experience, it’s unlikely that he will remain a passive spectator. Watch this space.
