Disability commissioner cracks the whip after survey reveals inflated enrollment data, non-existent institutes.
In a series of actions, Maharashtra Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities Bajirao Jadhav recently de-recognised 130 educational institutions for the physically and mentally challenged for allegedly showing inflated enrollment data to collect government grants, besides other irregularities. A detailed survey of the institutions revealed the anomalies, Jadhav said. After the correction, the number of disabled students receiving government grants has come down by 500.
The Ministry for Social Welfare provides special grants to educational institutions conducting courses for persons with disabilities. Other than normal education, vocational courses are taken up to empower them. Besides 736 government-run institutions, there are a large number of private institutions running such courses.
"Issues relating to corruption and inflated enrollment figures had long been a complaint with the institutions. We conducted a state-wide survey to understand the figures and know the status of these institutions," said Jadhav. The survey, which was conducted in all 35 districts of the state, threw up startling results. As many as 27 government institutions revealed cases of fraudulent enrollment, and numerous cases emerged of private institutions fraudulently running courses.
"We came across cases where private institutions had shown 200 students, while, in reality, they have just two students. Many institutions were found to be existing only on paper, and some were operating from a single room. In some places, we found no existence of the institution at all," said Jadhav.
Post the survey, the office of the Maharashtra Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities issued show-cause notices to the institutions. A total of 103 private and 27 government-run institutions were de-recognised.
Another fallout of the survey was that the enrollment numbers came down from 2,700 to 2,200. "This happened because enrollment numbers were inflated and thus we got the real number after the survey," said Jadhav.
Source : The Indian Express , 3rd May 2013
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