BHUBANESWAR: Peeved at the Industries Minister Raghunath Mohanty for rejecting major recommendations of the policy planning body (PPB), the private engineering colleges dared the minister to scrap the PPB.
‘Disapproval of the recommendations of PPB simply shows that the board does not have any sanctity. Under such circumstances, OPECA requests the Government to scrap the PPB as it is a sheer waste of money of the government and time of every member of the body, honorary secretary of the Orissa Private Engineering Colleges Association (OPECA) Binod Dash said.
The association has also requested the PPB Chairman Justice (Retd) AK Paricha not to call any further meeting and at the same time we have also decided not to attend any further meeting of PPB because it is sheer waste of time, he said.
In view of certain inherent deficiencies in the Orissa Professional Educational Institutions Act, 2007, there is an incremental vacancy of seats in both Government and non-Government colleges. The OPECA representatives met the Industries Minister during the winter session of the Assembly and apprised him of the problems faced by the private technical institutes, Dash said.
The PPB met on January 2 and after four hours of deliberations unanimously decided to take certain short-term solutions to solve the problems of filling up of vacant seats. The recommendations of the PPB were also accepted by the Chief Secretary, he said.
The recommendations will not violate the model code of conduct of the panchayat elections and is not intended to cause any illegal benefit to any one or cause any loss to the State exchequer, the OPECA said.
If the recommendations are not accepted, many private engineering colleges will not survive and many people will be rendered jobless.
OPECA requested the Minister to reconsider its decision and take measures to amend the Orissa Professional Educational Institutions Act at the earliest to enable the colleges to admit students to their capacity.