Nearly 70 engineering colleges have violated rules pertaining to management quota admissions this year. The department of higher education has started issuing show-cause notices to managements of these colleges asking them to explain why action should not be taken against them. The department may not ratify those admissions that were made in deviation of the norms. Parents who bought seats for their wards in these colleges by paying huge amounts of money are worried about this development. The AP State Council of Higher Education had constituted inspection teams to verify whether management quota admissions were made according to the rules in GO No.74 issued by the state government last year.

The rules stipulate that colleges should release admissions notification in three leading newspapers and issue applications to all the students who approach them. They should display the list of all the applicants on their website and prepare the merit list from among those applicants, which should be displayed on college notice boards and their websites. However, it was found that several colleges flouted rules and sold seats to students of their choice. In some cases, the number of applications issued by the colleges were equal to the number of seats available in them, proving beyond doubt that the seats were allotted to only those students who agreed to pay the ‘donations’ demanded by the colleges.

“We have issued show-cause notices to about 35 engineering colleges so far. Show-cause notices will be issued to another 15 colleges in a couple of days. Based on their reply, we will decide on the future course of action. The government has all the powers to cancel such admissions which were made in deviation of norms by not following merit and transparency,” said Prof Jayaprakash Rao, chairman, APSCHE. The college managements, of course, are trying to use their political clout to ensure that they are let off this year. While the government-prescribed fees in most of these colleges for management quota is only Rs 35,000, many of the errant colleges collected between Rs 50,000 and Rs 85,000.

Source : DC