Government of Maharashtra -Dept. of Higher Education has imposed a Rs 3-crore fine on private engineering and management institutions run by politician-turned-education barons for taking in more students than prescribed by the Supreme Court reports the Times of India
“When we found that the managements have admitted more students to their colleges than they are allowed to, we served them showcause notices. After considering their replies, we have imposed a fine according to the apex court norms. So far, the amount is Rs 3 crore and almost all of the 45 erring colleges have already paid the amount__only one is left,” a senior higher and technical education department official told reporters on Friday.
A year ago, the Supreme Court had prescribed the cut-off date as well as the procedure for admissions to these private colleges. Based on that, the education department conducted a survey for the academic years 2007 and 2008 and found that the number of students overshot the sanctioned figure. “In fact, the government should cancel the affiliation of these colleges. However, to protect the interest of students, we have not demanded that and have merely imposed a heavy fine on the erring institutions,” the official said.
According to the record, most of the institutions are located in the Pune region, followed by Mumbai, Nagpur, Nashik, Amravati and the Aurangabad revenue regions. A fine of Rs 3.64 lakh has been imposed on D Y Patil College of Engineering at Akurdi in Pune for admitting five students in excess, while two colleges of the same group at Pimpri and Kasbabawad__both in Pune__had to pay Rs 2.43 lakh and Rs 5.39 lakh for admitting four and eight extra students. D Y Patil is a veteran politician and his son Satej, who is in charge of the institutions, is an independent legislator from Kolhapur.
The engineering college run by Yeshwant Rural Education Society__controlled by politician Suresh Deshmukh__has been fined Rs 17 lakh for taking in 28 more students than allowed to, while Lokmanya Institute, controlled by textile minister Satish Chaturvedi, has been asked to pay Rs 17 lakh for admitting 26 students in excess.
MIT College, too, violated the rules by admitting 10 more students and for that it had to pay Rs 18 lakh, while Sharadchandra Pawar College of Pharmacy had to shell out Rs 1.2 as they had two students in excess. Sinhagad Institute of Management Studies has been fined Rs 83 lakh for taking in 54 extra students for their MBA course.
In Mumbai, Vidhyavardhani’s College of Engineering, Father Rodrigues Institute of Technology, Navi Mumbai, St Francis Institute of Technology and Oriental College of Pharmacy have overshot the Supreme Court figure and for that they have been fined Rs 72,000, Rs 62,040, Rs 2.23 lakh and Rs 3.47 lakh respectively.
The official said the issue of derecognition of the erring colleges has already been taken up with the All India Council of Technical Education. “Every year, we submit our report to the council and we expect that it will take stern action against institutions violating norms,” he said.
Source – Times of India
