Hyderabad: Managements of private educational institutions, claiming thousands of crores in fee reimbursements and scholarships, are now strangely opposing vigilance inspections to check for irregularities.
Chiefs of Intermediate, degree, B.Ed and D.Ed, ITI, minority institutions from the 10 districts met here on Saturday and floated a JAC to take on the government on this issue.
While the Vigilance department has the authority to probe misuse of public money, the managements claimed this was a special case. “Normally a vigilance team conducts a probe in an institution based on a complaint. Here, no complaint was lodged by any department.
The Chief Minister wanted the inspections and teams are being pressed into service. Normally, vigilance probes are conducted in just one or two institutions, but here they want to conduct vigilance inspections in nearly 6,300 institutions, which we oppose strongly,” said JAC member Mr S.S. Prabhakar Reddy.
He added: “Also, there are mechanisms within the Education department for checks. Even UGC norms do not prescribe vigilance checks to probe allegations. Police teams cannot enter educational institutions whenever they want,” he said.
The JAC has even given the Government time till Sunday to reverse its decision. The are threatening an indefinite shutdown of all institutions in the state from Monday .
When told the government’s sole aim was to identify bogus institutions, he said they were ready to cooperate with the government on this issue. “But we are not in favour of inspections by police teams,” said JAC chairman Mr G. Ramana Reddy. “The Education department and university officials could be assigned the job. If not, senior IAS officers should be roped in for this exercise.
Also, the government should involve stakeholders like us in the talks,” the JAC leader said. Another member claimed managements could even harassment from police if they were involved in inspections. “Police do not interfere in affairs of any educational institution.But the situation might not be the same if the government goes ahead with its plan,” he said.
Education minister Kadiyam Srihari has clarified the government’s plan was to weed out bogus colleges. The question of targeting colleges fulfilling norms does not arise at all, he added.
