-SATISH HANDA
Large number of professional institutes in Haryana and Punjab are facing severe financial crisis at present, few of them forced to down their shutters whereas many more institutes are on the verge of closure. Extensive changes were seen in the field of education in past two decades with the opening of large number of private educational institutes in the field of engineering, medical, information technology and management. Within a short span of few years such institutes started mushrooming all over in Haryana and Punjab states.
A survey reveals that nearly 40% students sought admission in these professional institutes after spending huge expenses had to part with their studies in between as their parents were unable to afford such a costly education and many more unable to get jobs even after possessing degrees. Information also reveals that such private institutes were not having restriction over them by the University or government or Indian Technical Education Council and more and more new institutes opened in-spite of slump in existing institutes able to fill up hardly 40-50% seats in such colleges functioning like an industry to distribute degrees. Sources reveal, there were only four government owned and two government aided technical institutes in Haryana state when it became a separate state from Punjab in 1966 having a capacity of 1341 seats and the number of such institutes rose to 643 having capacity of over 1.43 lakh seats., of them a large number of seats remained lying vacant since students from middle, lower middle and lower class families were unable to afford costly education in these private institutes due to higher fee structure. Information reveals, student strength in private professional institutes in Punjab in 2016-17 was nearly 3.5 lakh, which reduced to nearly 2.5 lakh in the year 2018-19.
A recent study reveals, nearly 200 professional institutes in Punjab providing professional education in engineering, polytechnic, B.Ed, IT, homeopathy have been closed down due to severe financial crisis in past some time. The managing committees of these institutes accuse Punjab government for non-remittance of scholarship amount worth Rs 1409 crore to nearly 1600 institutes in the state payable to backward class students as a result nearly 200 private institutes started facing financial burden worth over Rs 2500 crore on them were closed down and bank accounts of nearly 70% institutes turned NPA. According to Chairman of a private institute requested not to disclose his name, last amount worth Rs 307 crore towards reimbursement of amount of scholarship to backward class students was released by Punjab government in February 2016 and no re-imbursement in this regard was made to private institutes after this.
Information further reveals that as many as 25 polytechnic institutes in Punjab state recently expressed their un-ability to run their institute and 147 other colleges are getting auction notices by the banks when failed to remit instalments of their loans and interest amount. Information also reveals that between 8000-10000 employees working in such private institutes have not been paid their salaries since past six months to a year.
