Nagpur: Two days after Nagpur University banned over 200 colleges from admitting students, its officials blamed earlier administrators for showing leniency towards these colleges which were operating without teachers and infrastructure right since their inception.
NU’s crackdown on the colleges sent shock waves in the academic fraternity and left many students and their parents wondering whether to take admissions or migrate to other places like Pune and Mumbai. It was only after TOI published a report on Tuesday on how NU was dilly-dallying on revealing names of 98 colleges that were on verge of disaffiliation, its college section swung into action and uploaded entire list on its website the same day.
Apart from these 98 colleges, whose admissions were banned last year only, NU added 29 more colleges to the list for deficiencies like lack of lecturers, non-teaching staff and facilities, and also for failure to invite local enquiry committees (LECs) for inspection.
In the third list, NU named another 82 colleges, whose branches were prohibited from admitting students on account of similar reasons. This list included many engineering and elite colleges from the region like Shivaji Science, Dhanwate National (DNC) and Mahila Mahavidyalaya along with GH Raisoni, Priyadarshini, Wainganga, JD, Nuva, Guru Nanak and others. Overall, admission to about 209 colleges have been stopped for new academic session (2018-19) starting mid-June.
Some of these colleges were also the part of NU’s infamous ‘250 banned colleges’, which had rocked the institution in 2013, and brought it on the verge of collapse. Despite ban, these colleges fraudulently admitted over 6,600 students who were left stranded as NU refused to conduct their examinations. It was only after leading politicians, including then education minister Rajesh Tope, intervened, the NU conducted their special examinations. The controversy culminated with ouster of the then vice-chancellor Vilas Sapkal, as banned colleges’ owners, mostly local politicians, didn’t want him to continue.
NU officials said ever since their establishment, a majority of these erring colleges are running like these only. However, NU’s LECs ignored all brazen violations by their respective managements and granted them permissions to admit students. “Despite being fully aware of all these violations, then administrators blindly granted them permissions, under obvious pressure from politicians who run them. Even the statutory bodies like Academic Council cleared their proposals, as those were dominated by same teachers who were part of LECs,” they told TOI.
Though officials hailed NU’s crackdown, they were sceptical about how long the top brass would be able to sustain the ban, as blacklisted colleges included many from renowned groups like Meghe, Raisoni, Pandav, Manoharbhai Patel, Waghaye Patil, Suresh Deshmukh and others, who can pressurise the administration.
(Inputs from Samruddhi Chiplunkar)
