CRACKING the whip on technical/management institutes offering poor quality education,the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has issued notices to 23 colleges across Maharashtra. The discrepancies,according to AICTE officials,included lack of requisite infrastructure and equipment,poor facilities and faculty shortage. The institutes were assessed during surprise visits. It is part of our monitoring process. There is a set of regulations that all institutes must follow. We wanted to know if colleges were observing them or not. The shortcomings were pointed out to institutes and they were given time to rectify them. Some were penalised through reduction of student intake. Subsequently,we zeroed in on these 23 colleges,which had still not complied with the norms, said an AICTE official. Institutes in Maharashtra include Lokmanya Tilak College of Engineering,Navi Mumbai; Rohidas Patil Institute of Management Studies,Mumbai; NCRDs Sterling Institute of Management Studies,Thane; International Institute of Management Studies,Pune; Shree Ramchandra College of Engineering,Pune; Central Institute of Business Management Research & Development,Nagpur; Shri Sai Institute of Technology,Aurangabad; J T Mahajan College of Engineering,Jalgaon; Dr N H Wagh Institute of Management and Research,Nashik,and Siddhivinayak Technical Campus,Buldhana. In all,101 institutes across the country have been asked to submit compliance reports. These include 26 from Andhra Pradesh,12 from Uttar Pradesh,eight from Gujarat,six each from Tamil Nadu and Haryana,five from Odisha,four each from Rajasthan and West Bengal,two each from Delhi,Madhya Pradesh and Kerala,and one from Jharkhand.
