Baddi varsity fined Rs 11L for violating admission norms

Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, June 11

The Himachal Pradesh Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Commission (HPPIERC) today imposed a penalty of Rs 11 lakh on IEC University, Baddi, for the violation of admission norms. The university is running 30 external and self-paced learning courses that are not recognised by the distance education mode of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and without the fee approval from the state government.

Collected Rs 30 lakh on conditional approval

The commission observed that before seeking a formal approval from the HPPIERC, the university enrolled over 3,039 students by taking cover under the letter of conditional approval and collected fees to the tune of Rs30 lakh, said Maj Gen (retd) Atul Kaushik, chairman, HPPIERC.

The courses were started last year (academic session 2020-21) after getting prior approval of the HPPIERC, which allowed the courses after “conditional” approval in principal, keeping in view the Covid-19 situation and future learning technologies/methodologies with specific condition to provide entire details with number of teaching hours and days, examination and admission procedures but the sanctioned intake of the seats was not granted for these courses.

The commission observed that before seeking a formal approval from the HPPIERC, the university enrolled over 3,039 students by taking cover under the letter of conditional approval and collected fees to the tune of Rs 30 lakh, said chairman, HPPIERC, Maj Gen (retd) Atul Kaushik.

In the interim order passed today, the Education Regulator held that it was a clear-cut violation of the admission norms as well as the provisions contained in the IEC University Act as neither the student intake for courses was granted nor mandatory fee approval was sought from the state government. Moreover, the details regarding faculty, teaching hours, examination and admission procedures was also not submitted.

As the future of over 3,039 students enrolled in these unapproved courses is at stake due to negligence of the university, an expert panel would be constituted to analyse the infrastructure, faculty for conversion of external and self-paced learning courses to regular courses.

However, the academicians were of the opinion that converting distance mode courses into regular courses would send a wrong signal and encourage malpractices by other private educational institutions in future.