The Higher and Technical Education department has come under the scanner of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) for not recovering penalties of Rs. 2.01 crore from private institutes. The institutes in question include those run by the DY Patil group of Institutes: Saraswati Education Society, Navi Mumbai, and Sinhagad Institute of Management, Pune.
The amount due is a penalty that the institutes were supposed to pay to the department for taking in excess students on multiple occasions.
The department fixes the student intake for an institute, which depends on the course structure and infrastructure. But by admitting excess students, the institutes earned more fees, despite having infrastructure for fewer students. This has denied students the benefits in form of academic support and infrastructure.
The department needs to be severely criticized for 'inadequacy' in implementing an existing resolution that fixes penalties. According to the resolution, institutions defaulting for the first time are liable to pay a penalty equal to 200% of the fee for each extra student admitted. This goes up to 500% for institutes that default for the second time. If an institute defaults for the third time, it is to be referred to the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) and the National Council for Teachers Education for cancelling its recognition.
The rule allows institutes to accept excess intake on multiple occasions, since the penalties may have been already charged for students in another course of the institute.
If the educational institutes start violating rules, what can one expect from the students who pass out from these institutes? Hence for the benefit of the students, actions should be immediately taken against those educational institutes which violate rules to prevent it from setting a bad example for its students.
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