Recommending suspension of the grants of Post Matric Scholarship to private universities and colleges, Punjab Vidhan Sabha Committee for Welfare of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Backward Classes has expressed need for putting in place a regulatory mechanism for private educational institutes.
In the wake of the discrepancies found in the disbursement of Post Matric Scholarship, the Committee headed by former Judge, Justice Nirmal Singh has said that unless the ongoing investigation in the release of Post Matric Scholarship benefits was completed, the new funds should not be released to the private educational institutes.
Finding other shortcomings in the conduct of private universities, the committee has said that universities were flouting rules and running their remote centres and giving fake admissions to students on the pretext of distance education. The students registered under distance education have been found enrolled in other institutes as regular students as well.
In its report, the committee has said neither the rules framed by the State Government nor by the University Grants Commission (UGC) were being adhered to by the private universities. Committee has also raised objection on the recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff in a famous private university of the State and said the reservation policy was not being followed in the recruitment.
Seeking action against the erroneous institutes at the earliest, the committee has written to the Principle Secretary, Higher Education and asked him to take immediate action against the disobedient institutes.
The scam in the scholarship scam had come to light last year, when the beneficiaries’ names were linked with their Aadhaar numbers. It was found that a large number of beneficiaries had been included in more than one institute or more than one category.
Technical Education and Industrial Training department had initiated enquiry, when the matter was unearthed and around 180 technical institutes have been found embezzling or misappropriating the funds under the scheme and the scam is expected to go up to several crores in the full enquiry.
In a brief debate on the scope of the scam, Technical Education and Industrial Training Minister Madan Mohan Mittal had told Punjab assembly that around 6126 students of various Polytechnics and ITI’s were found to be dual claimants or fake ones. Scholarships to the tune of 18.33 crores had already been disbursed to such claimants. The department has barred 4 Polytechnics and 4 Engineering colleges from taking new admission from the next session i.e., 2016-17.
Now the investigation is being handed over to Vigilance Bureau as per the assurance given by Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal in Punjab Vidhan Sabha.