After The Hindu reported that the Department of Primary and Secondary Education was found to be violating its own orders by granting permission to new private pre-university (PU) colleges that have flouted rules, it has now come to light that all 84 Government Orders (GOs) were issued to the new colleges when the code of conduct for the Legislative Council elections was in force.
Member of the Legislative Council Arun Shahapur said on Monday all the GOs were issued in the last week of May or the first week of June. The code of conduct was in place between May 15 and June 12 . Documents with The Hindu also corroborate this.
Mr. Shahapur stated that while there were clear instructions that all files pertaining to new private colleges should be rejected at the Department of Pre University Education (DPUE) Director’s level if they did not conform to the norms, many files were allegedly sought by the Secretariat. “There is a reason to question why the files were sought by the government although it was categorically stated that the Director should reject all the files,” Mr. Shahapur said, and demanded an inquiry into the matter.
The DPUE had received 246 proposals to start new PU colleges. While eleven colleges fulfilled the criteria as recommended by the DPUE, 235 proposals were rejected for failure to meet the infrastructure norms and other violations. Many colleges also failed to make the cut as the department had issued a new rule that no private PU college would be given permission if a government college was already functioning in a 3-km radius of the proposed location.
This rule was introduced to control the mushrooming private PU colleges and to give a push to enrolment in government colleges.
