Varsity's call to widen scope of bill to check unfair practices

Updated on: Monday, January 24, 2011

Statutory bodies such as the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the Medical Council of India (MCI) and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) should be brought within the ambit of the Prohibition of Unfair Practices in Technical Institutions, Medical Institutions and Universities Bill, according to SASTRA University.

In a letter addressed to Oscar Fernandes, chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee examining the bill, Vice-Chancellor of the university R. Sethuraman said: “The proposed bill primarily is in regard to collection of excess fees by way of donation, capitation fee and other questionable practices for admission of students.”

The letter pointed out that the issue of capitation fee was being regulated by separate Acts in almost all the States from 1993.

“Hence, the problem is not a lack of legislation, but the failure on the part of enforcing authorities and the respective governments to adhere to the existing regulatory mechanism.”

It had come light how approvals were obtained from the MCI or the Dental Council of India and these were money swindling bodies. The Central government had remained a mute spectator to the alleged corrupt practices of the MCI. Similarly, the situation in the AICTE or the NCTE was no better as corruption was rampant in these regulatory bodies also, it said.

Professor Sethuraman said, “Without setting right the moral fabric of the statutory bodies and asking other educational institutions to function transparently is like addressing the symptoms and not the disease. The scope of the bill must be widened to even include malpractices committed by institutions involving various statutory authorities during the stages approval, inspection, renewal and accreditation.”

He said the University of Madras, in the 1950s and 1960s, followed a transparent method for admission to the post-graduate programmes and the entire admission system was successfully done even without the help of the computer.

Varsity's call to widen scope of bill to check unfair practices

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