mushroom like engineering colleges

Deccan chronicles,Chennai: The Madras high court has directed the Centre to answer as to why it should not appoint an expert body/commission to ana­ly­se problems of engineering education, revisit approval norms, standards of teaching, unfilled seats in colleges, employment prosp­ects and to suggest remedial measures to improve the quality of education.

Justice N. Kirubakaran gave the directive while passing interim orders on a petition from C. Naresh Kumar, an engineering graduate, who along with 139 others was cheated by  S. Subramani of Infolink Private Limited on the pr­o­mise of offering software training and subsequent placement of job by collecting `45,000 from each candidate.

The judge also directed the Union and TN governments, AICTE and Anna University to answer 10 queries which included how many colleges had be­en in existence in India since 1980 (statewise de­t­a­ils), how many seats we­re being filled from 2000, how many engineering gr­a­duates were coming out every year and how ma­­ny were getting placement and why AICTE did’t stop approving new engi­ne­­er­i­ng colleges in view of more unfilled seats and le­ss em­ployment opportunities.

The judge said even th­ough the petitioner and B.E candidates were chea­ted in 2008, the accused got an anticipatory bail in 2009 which was cancelled in 2011. Soon, he obtained the second bail with an un­dertaking to settle the amount to the affected pe­rsons, but no serious steps were taken by police. So, the affected engineering graduates were constrai­ned the move the court.