Shimla: Acting tough on complaints that some private institutions were misusing funds for commercial purposes, the Himachal Pradesh Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Commission has recommended an audit of all private institutions in the state.
Recommending for an audit of all private institutions, the commission has written a letter to the Chief Secretary and apprised of observing siphoning off funds, after thoroughly examining of balance sheets, by some private universities and colleges of the state.
Regulatory Commission Chairman Major Gen (retd) Atul Kaushik said that the Commission had received complaints of misusing funds collected through fees by the private universities and colleges. And acting the complaints, the commission had directed private universities and private colleges to submit their balance sheets and after examining that Commission found no transparency and clarity in maintaining accounts, Chairman further added.
Major Gen (retd) Kaushik further said that the Trusts, on which name institutions are being run, are located outside Himachal and it’s observed that funds were being sent to the trusts and there were a glaring disparity in allocations of funds from the trust to the institutions.
Chairman said that private universities and colleges are not for profit organisations’ and were supposed to utilise the funds on infrastructure development and delivering quality education.
He also cautioned to approach the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to check the misuse of funds.
Most of the private universities and colleges are accused of not paying salaries of their staff on time. During the Covid lockdown, many private universities had not paid salaries of their staff for months and later deducted even 50 percent of salaries on the pretext of pandemic and assumed losses. It’s worth to mention that institutions have not given any relief to the students.
It’s reliably learned that the Commission had received many complaints about illegal salary cuts, and in some cases, the commission had bluntly asked the applicants to approach some competent authority. With soaring complaints from the staff of many institutions, the Commission had directed to release of deducted salaries of the staff. However, institutions have not taken any action in this regard.
