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PhD degrees awarded by 17 HP private varsities under lens
There were complaints against several private universities that they were awarding PhD degrees without following proper guidelines and rules laid by the University Grants Commission
The Himachal Pradesh Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Commission (HPPERC) has launched a probe into the PhD degrees awarded by all 17 private universities in the state.
The commission has taken into its custody the records of all PhD degrees awarded after 2009.
There were complaints against several private universities that they were awarding PhD degrees without following proper guidelines and rules laid by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
The move also comes close on the heels of some private universities in Rajasthan being accused of awarding degrees in violation of the UGC norms.
In Haryana, cases of Rajasthan-based universities awarding PhD degrees fraudulently had also come to the fore last year.
According to the complaints received by the HPPERC, the rules laid down by the UGC for awarding PhD degrees in some private universities of the state were not being followed. A PhD degree is normally of a three-year period but a candidate can complete it in up to six years.
According to the complaints, some universities were not adhering to the time period fixed for awarding the degrees.
“Necessary formalities are also not being completed and PhD degrees are being awarded in seven to eight years,” said chairperson of the commission, Major General Atul Kaushik (retd), adding that the PhD degrees issued by all private universities of Himachal Pradesh were being scrutinised.
“An inquiry committee has inspected the universities. Now, the documents are being scrutinised,” he further said.
“Violation of rules will not be tolerated and if any university is found flouting the norms, strict action will be taken. PhD is the most important educational degree and violations of rules in this context cannot be allowed. There have been complaints wherein PhD scholars had to change their guides three to five times during the course, while in some of the cases, degrees were awarded to the students who couldn’t even complete them in the stipulated period,” the chairperson said.
The HPPERC was set up by the Himachal Pradesh government in 2010 under Section 3 of the Himachal Pradesh Private Educational Institutions (Regulatory Commission) Act, 2010, for the purpose of providing a regulatory mechanism in the state and for working as an interface between the state government and central regulatory bodies for ensuring appropriate standards of admission, teaching examination, research and protection of interest of students in the private educational institutions and for matters connected therewith.
The three-member committee constituted by the commission comprises senior professors who will look into the violations. “We are doing all this to maintain the standards of education,” said Kaushik.
Besides 17 private universities, Himachal Pradesh also has three government universities -- Himachal Pradesh University in Summer Hill, Chaudhary Sarwan Kumar Agriculture University in Palampur and Dr Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Forestry and Horticulture Studies at Nauni.
A special investigating team (SIT) with officials from the income tax department, enforcement directorate, Himachal Pradesh Police and crime investigation department (CID) on board had during an investigation two years ago unearthed an education scam at Solan-based private university, Manav Bharti (MBU), which allegedly sold more than 45,000 fake degrees.
“The probe revealed that each degree related to technical subjects was sold to students within and outside Himachal Pradesh for ₹1 lakh to ₹3 lakh,” Kaushik said.
