The Hindu : NCP for Govt. regulation of unaided institutions

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 12, 2003

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Other States - Maharashtra

NCP for Govt. regulation of unaided institutions

By Mahesh Vijapurkar

MUMBAI Jan. 11. It is feared that fees in unaided educational institutions in Maharashtra may shoot up beyond affordable levels after a recent Supreme Court judgment gave them the discretion to decide on admissions, the fee structure, appointment of staff and setting up of governing bodies.

To ensure that this does not happen, and that poor but deserving students continue to have access to the unaided educational institutions, minority or otherwise, the Nationalist Congress Party is pushing the State Government to set up a regulatory body. The fees, depending on the courses offered, are upwards of Rs. 800 a year in an aided institution. But in an unaided college, they are between Rs. 5,000 and Rs. 25,000 a year and from the accounts available, many are not even properly equipped.

The NCP has set up a 12-member panel which will advise the party on what directive it should give its Ministers in the Democratic Front Government, in which it is a partner. The NCP president, Sharad Pawar, ensured that no politician, who runs an educational institution in the unaided "avatar," was nominated to the panel. Ratnakar Mahajan, party ideologue and vice president, will head the body. According to Dr. Mahajan, the Supreme Court judgment "is very reactionary'' and the Government would have to take corrective action.

The judgment has, however, said that the object of running educational institutions "should not be profit'' as education was "entirely charitable in nature.''

The institutions, it said, could aim "at a reasonable surplus.'' Hitherto, apart from being an instrument of patronage, many of the unaided educational institutions are known to be close to profiteering so much so that at the NCP executive meeting, an MP said "it is more profitable to run convents'' — private, English medium schools — than colleges. Some of these "education barons,'' on par with sugar barons who have co-opted the entire sugar co-operatives as though they are their personal fiefdoms, have boasted of how "my educational complex is worth Rs. 200 crores.''

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NCP for Govt. regulation of unaided institutions