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Dummy admission racket: Two Sangrur pharmacy colleges ordered to close course
For this ‘service’ of dummy admission, the college charged each student between ₹1.5 lakh and ₹2 lakh for each semester of six months. Officially, the fee per semester is ₹30,000
Chandigarh The Punjab State Board of Technical Education and Industrial Training has ordered two Sangrur colleges of pharmacy to shutdown courses in their flagship subject. Their students will be shifted to the same course in government colleges in the state. The action came after these colleges, Vinayaka College of Pharmacy, Jakhar Road, Lehragaga and Vidya Jyoti College of Pharmacy, Kotra Lehal, Lehragaga, were found to be indulging in dummy and bogus admission. These colleges run some other courses that will continue.
The department recently inspected six colleges and these two were found to be guilty of this malpractice for both students and staff. For this ‘service’ of dummy admission, the college charged each student between ₹1.5 lakh and ₹2 lakh for each semester of six months. Officially, the fee per semester is ₹30,000.
Board secretary Rajiv Gupta issued these orders on December 19, after two raids that board chairman Anurag Verma had ordered. The two colleges have also been asked to submit the fee collected from students to the board exchequer with immediate effect.
The modus operandi
On paper, both the institutes claimed to be running diploma courses with an intake of 60 students in the first year. A board official said, “Such colleges charge hefty amounts, assuring the students that there is no need to attend any classes. Most students who enrol for dummy admissions are from Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.”
During a raid on October 10 this year, however, no student was found present at the Vinayaka College in pharmacy diploma classes. Punjabi University, Patiala, dean faculty of medicines, RK Goel, and Nirmal Singh, pharmacy department head at the varsity had conducted this raid.
At the Vidya Jyoti institute, 47 students were found present in the class. When the inspection team, however, cross-checked their credentials by asking each student the names of their fathers, most fumbled and narrated the wrong name as per the list the college has supplied, indicating a cover-up. In other violations of rules, the colleges were found to be short-staffed and were also giving salaries in cash.
On the basis of this report, these colleges were issued show-cause notices. In reply, Vinayaka College claimed that before the surprise inspection, students were absent without informing it. Vidya Jyoti College claimed that the inability of students to give their father’s names was ‘done by some mischievous students’.
Even as the board found these replies unsatisfactory, it ordered a second team to conduct a raid, which was done on November 22. Government Polytechnic College for Girls, Patiala, principal led these raids.
Now, in the case of Vidya Jyoti, the principal was not found to be present; even the students were absent and non-teaching staff, who had marked their attendance, failed to produce any identity card.
“It is evidently clear that these colleges are running with dummy students and staff. The students who have been enrolled in the class were actually not attending the classes,” the board secretary notes in its orders.
Another college in Bathinda was also found to be running this racket, but action against it is pending as it has moved the Punjab and Haryana high court, citing a technicality.
