Telangana: Colleges offering tech PG face surprise checks

Hyderabad: The state government has begun surprise inspections of technology institutions, including engineering colleges. JNTU teams are landing up in colleges without notice and inspecting records, students’ attendance and faculty data among other things.According to sources, the surprise checks are confined mostly to colleges offering PG programmes such as MTech, MPharm and MBA.

The state government spends nearly Rs 3,000 crore every year on reimbursing fees for students, while scholarships being given for PG studies are high — Rs 1.1 lakh for MPharm annually, '60,000 for MTech and MBA per year. The objective of these sudden visits is to expose irregularities.

Many students start working after their graduation but join the PG courses nevertheless; they are not required to pay much from their pockets their fee is reimbursed.

These students tend to skip classes. As per norms, colleges cannot allow students to sit for their examinations if they are short of attendance. But some managements allow students to appear for their exams by collecting extra money from them.Additionally, since a majority of students do not attend classes on daily, some colleges do not fill in all the faculty positions.

The government is of the view that public money is being misused, especially for PG courses, hence the decision to expose these irregularities. JNTU Vice-Chancellor Prof. A. Venugopal Reddy said officials had inspected nearly 30 institutions, including engineering colleges.

“The academic audit is being done where varsity officials are checking attendance data and the teaching faculty. We checked 30 colleges and found only two to three colleges were maintaining proper records. We will submit a report to the government and it will take appropriate action,” he said.

TS Council for Higher Education chairman Prof. T. Papi Reddy said the government would monitoring PG studies stringently and that colleges and students would have to fall in line.