BackPrivate engineering, medical colleges in West Bengal under scrutiny
The probe has reached the doorsteps of Techno India Group, which in 2012 was allowed to set up a university under an unprecedented state law named after it
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Kolkata: West Bengal is investigating whether private engineering and medical colleges have been taking cash without issuing receipts to admit students via management quota.
Several complaints have been made against many colleges of this “unfair business practice", which amounts to tax evasion, and that the state government had written to them demanding explanation, Sadhan Pande, the state’s consumers affairs minister, said in an interview.
The probe has reached the doorsteps of Techno India Group, which in 2012 was allowed to set up a university under an unprecedented state law named after it.
Techno India Group, which runs 20 colleges, denied receiving any fee in cash which weren’t accounted for or acknowledged.
Private engineering and medical colleges in the state are allowed to reserve up to 10% of seats under the so-called management quota. But, in practice, private engineering and medical colleges in the state have at their disposal many more seats to sell for a capitation fee.
In 2014, for instance, only 17,000 students out of around 100,000 applicants who sat the entrance test qualified to be admitted in the state’s 83 engineering colleges, which put together have some 25,000 seats.
It is illegal to expand the management quota beyond the 10% ceiling, said Vivek Kumar, principal secretary in the state’s higher education department, and his department had not received any complaint yet of colleges taking in more students under the quota than they are allowed.
It is common knowledge that these vacant seats are eventually sold to students who can afford the capitation fee, said Partha Chatterjee, West Bengal’s minister for higher education. “We intend to stop this practice and also cut the number of seats going forward because there aren’t enough meritorious students to fill them up," he added.
A student, who asked not to be identified, complained to West Bengal’s consumer affairs department that one of the colleges of Techno India Group asked the student to pay ₹ 1,00,000 in cash for which no receipt was issued. The remaining ₹ 2,00,000 of the capitation fee was paid by cheque.
Rebutting the allegation and calling it “unfounded", a spokesperson for Techno India Group said seats at its colleges do not go vacant, and that its colleges did not receive any money in cash.
“If a student offers money for admission, it is he or she who is at fault, not the university," the spokesperson said.
Similar complaints have been received against private medical colleges as well—there are three in the state—which charge ₹ 20-30 lakh for five-year undergraduate course in medicine.
Chatterjee is of the view that these and other private engineering colleges charge exorbitant fees, which he principally opposes.
“Students are not to be fleeced in the name of education," he said.
Fees at private colleges are determined by an independent committee headed by a retired judge of the Calcutta high court following guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court, but Kumar of the higher education department admitted it isn’t always possible to check if these colleges complied with the fee structure.
Chittaranjan Maity, principal of KPC Medical College in Kolkata—one of those facing investigation by West Bengal’s consumer affairs department—said his college received fees only through bank transfer and there was no question of receiving money in cash without issuing receipts.
If so many seats remain unclaimed, it becomes financially unviable for colleges to run courses, said the head of a private engineering college, asking not to be named. Given that capacity has already been created, colleges have to find ways to raise resources to stay in operation, this person said.
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