HYDERABAD: The Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education’s (TSBIE) ambitious plan to streamline and regulate hostels in the corporate junior colleges and issue permissions from the ensuing academic year 2018-19 is likely to be shelved this year.It has already been a week since the commencement of the new academic session and with the matter pending in court, college managements say that even if the matter is resolved, it would be difficult for them to implement the guidelines in a jiffy. Telangana Private Junior Colleges Management Association (TPJMA) had sued the board seeking a relaxation of norms pertaining to FRD and inspection fee.
The matter is slated for hearing around June 20.
Dr V Narender Reddy, president TPJMA, said that even after the case is disposed of by the court, it would take colleges at least a couple of months to implement the guidelines, get the requisite certifications and clearances from GHMC, fire department etc., and then apply for affiliation. This will be followed by an inspection.
“By then, we will be in the middle of the academic session and at that point, we can’t be told that you do not have enough facilities to run hostels. It will impact both managements and students. It is doubtful that hostels can be affiliated this year,” he said.He, however, added that at best hostels can be registered this year and can apply for affiliations the following year.
BIE: TPJMA trying to ascertain our authority
Meanwhile, BIE, which has time and again reiterated its intent to streamline hostels in the private and corporate junior colleges, is unhappy that TPJMA took the matter to the court despite being assured that their concerns were being looked into. The most contentious aspect of the affiliation guidelines issued by the BIE were fees pertaining to inspection, permission and maintaining corpus fund or FDR and providing an area of 50 sq ft per student.
While inspection fee and hostel permission fee depended upon the location of the hostels - GHMC, municipal and Nagar Panchayats and Gram Panchayat areas - the caution deposit amount varied upon the number of hostel occupants. For instance, a hostel with 50 students would pay `2 lakh each for both first and second year. For 51- 200 students, the amount would be `4 lakh each and for more than 500 occupants, it was `16 lakh.
“College managements had demanded a relaxation in inspection fee and hostel permission fee by 30 per cent, to which we had agreed. With regards to FDR, we slashed the amount by 50 per cent. At the behest of the managements, TSBIE has also reduced the area per student from 50 to 40 sqft. The secretary (Dr A Ashok) had even said that if they wanted more relaxation, it could have been done. But instead of talking it out, they went to the courts to get a stay order,” said Khalik, joint secretary (academics) TSBIE. He added that this was being done just to ensure that the board’s authority remains limited to colleges and hostels remain out of its ambit.