HMDA set to demolish 54 colleges okayed by AICTE.
Fifty four engineering colleges, that had received clearance
from the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), are now facing the threat
of demolition as they have been found to be operating without the necessary compliances.
And it is the council that the state government is looking towards for an explanation
as to how clearances were issued to colleges which did not fulfill the essential
criteria. A flawless land use certificate is one of the preconditions for the AICTE
to give approval to colleges. But the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority
(HMDA) insists that none of these colleges have the required land use certificate.
To add to it, their application for regularisation under the Building Penalisation
Scheme (BPS), too, has been rejected.
All 54 colleges, which are to be demolished
by the end of this month, are located in Ranga Reddy district. While their applications
were rejected under the BPS scheme last year in May, they were served demolition
notices on February 9th. The council, which was, till recently, reeling from allegations
of high-level corruption, had gone for a surprise inspection drive in the academic
years 2010-11 and 2011-12. It had inspected 105 colleges in the state during these
surprise visits and given clean chits to 99 of them, including the ones now facing
demolition. HMDA now, has widened the scope of the crack down and served fresh showcase
notices on over 50 other colleges. Over 300 colleges in both Hyderabad and Ranga
Reddy are now under scrutiny, it was learnt. The demolition notices have come at
a time when the state government itself is questioning AICTE for giving permissions
to colleges without considering the demand for seats. This year, 40 colleges have
applied for approval to take students.
The government has been requesting the AICTE
top brass to be stringent in their approval process. But with the authorities turning
a blind eye to such violations, the quality of technical education in the state
is sure to remain poor, said an official from the higher education department. Technical
education experts said that the fate of students studying in the colleges, which
stand to be demolished, is now AICTE's responsibility. Before the demolition starts,
the students will have to be accommodated in other colleges. When asked about the
major flaw, AICTE officials in AP responded that colleges could have submitted fake
documents to get approval. Only the state government can verify land use documents.
AICTE officials do check the documents but they cannot always verify whether they
are in order. We have already filed several cases against colleges for producing
fake documents. If proven guilty of forging documents, they too will be penalized,
said Dr. R.K. Gangal, director and regional officer, AICTE. Defending the council,
he said that, for the last two years, the approval process has been more than sufficiently
strict.
Courtesy: Times of India
