End of the road for some private engg colleges?

- Task Force to recommend stringent measures - Booking criminal cases for wrong reports under consideration - Draft ready, final report on April 18

BH Ramakrishna

The task for which the Task Force team has been set up is almost over. The draft report of the Task Force for thorough inspections in all 689 private engineering colleges in the state is ready. A meeting of the state level Task Force along with senior officials of Higher and Technical education and Higher Education Council was held on Wednesday and discussed threadbare the report and the recommendations to be made to the government.

Compilation of district and regional-level task force teams' reports had been done and the draft was prepared in a comprehensive way after comparing the data with the details provided by the college managements earlier. It gave a clear picture of each and every college, top sources revealed. It has been found that more than fifty percent of the colleges have submitted wrong returns and their details with regard to faculty were also misleading.

The infrastructure in more than 300 colleges-which are located in rural areas and in municipal towns- has learnt to have been below average. Even in the city suburbs, out of more than 250 colleges which come under direct purview of JNTU-Hyderabad, more than 60 percent don't have good infrastructure, sources said.

Some among the top 85 colleges, most of which were around Hyderabad, have deliberately misled the Task Force teams on the faculty and their payments, it was found. This has angered the Task Force committee very much and SK Sinha, convener of State-level team was said to have proposed recommending criminal action against them.

"Why should we allow them to go scot free when they intentionally misled the courts, the government and the public?" he has reportedly asked. But some of the members felt that criminal action would be too harsh and proposed giving some time- up to six months- to correct the situation and regain lost ground. If they fail to do so, they will be awarded the requisite punishment under existing laws, the reportedly suggested.

Sinha then said to have mooted that let us give a report suggested criminal or some other action and leave the issue to the government. In any case, it would be the government which has to take a political decision.. Closure or criminal proceedings or let off, let it be decided by government, senior members said to have opined.

But there was no final decision on the issue and the Task Force will again meet on April 17 evening and take a view, sources said. In all probability, the State Level Task Force would submit its final report to government, AFRC and the High Court on April 18, sources said.

The AFRC has been awaiting the Task Force report as it has to finalise the fee structure basing on the reports of each college.