Mr. President, Sir, there seems to be a general tendency on the part of a number of Members of this House to transfer a number of items in List II to List III. May I say at once that we, members of the Drafting Committee, are faced with two opposing problems. Certain Members of the House want that a greater responsibility should be shouldered by the Centre. On the other hand, there are a number of Members in this Hose who feel that the Centre is taking on to itself far more than it ought to, thereby rendering provincial autonomy a mere farce. Actually, such complaints also appear in the papers and I found recently a lecture by Mr. C.R. Reddy, Vice-Chancellor of the Andhra University who has heavily underlined this tendency of power gravitating to the Centre. I would like to repudiate at once so far as the Drafting Committee is concerned, that there is any idea of either overloading the Centre or erring on the side of the provinces. All that we have done, to the extent that we are able to do, is only to see that the Centre takes only such powers as are needed for the purpose of coordinating the activities of the provinces. My Honourable Friends who have moved these amendments either to take over the entry “education” to the Concurrent List or to limit the scope of entry 18 to Education up to the Secondary standard, if they would please pursue the items relating to Education in List I, they will see that we have provided and the House has accepted those provisions, which confer enough power on the Centre to coordinate the educational activities of the States in the field of higher education, in the field of technical education, in the field of vocational education and also in the field of scientific research. That is about as far as it is safe for the Central Government to go it would not be wise for any Central Government to go beyond that limit.
