Express News Service By

HYDERABAD: Buttressing Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s oft-repeated claim that fee reimbursement scheme is a sham spawning unskilled talent, the Task Force Committee on engineering colleges says most of the colleges in the state lack basic facilities like computers, laboratories and libraries.

The committee was constituted during former Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy’s tenure. The committee’s observations gain significance as the Telangana government has scrapped the fee reimbursement scheme and replaced it with Financial Assistance to Telangana Students (FAST).

As most of the colleges lack computers, students who had passed out of these colleges could not secure jobs due to lack of knowledge on computers. Most parents complain that their wards were not getting employment opportunities in Hyderabad due to lack of facilities in engineering colleges. The committee’s major areas of inspection included adhrence to AICTE norms on various parametres like availability of land, built-up area, computers, lab equipment, library, faculty and qualifications of faculty members.

Major findings of the committee

BUILT-UP AREA: Only 10 colleges show deficiency with regard to land requirement while 319 colleges do not meet the required built-up area. The percentage of deficiency varies from 0.12 per cent to 87.94 per cent.

COMPUTERS: As many as 393 colleges do not have the required number of computers.

The percentage varies from 0.91 per cent to 95.65 per cent.

LABORATORIES: As many as 449 colleges do not have laboratories and 146 colleges do not have books in the library.

FACULTY: 622 colleges do not meet the requirement of number of faculty as per AICTE norms. As against the 1:15 (teacher:student) ratio requirement, the overall ratio of qualified teachers to students in 654 engineering colleges is 1:28 for UG and PG programmes.

The committee had earlier submitted its report to the united Andhra Pradesh state in 2012.

As per the report, the state contributed the highest technical manpower in the country and was having around 700 engineering colleges with an intake of more than three lakh students per year. Apart from these courses pharmacy, MBA and MCA colleges.

A high-level Committee constituted by the higher education department in 2010 also suggested to the government to create a strong mechanism to inspect and verify infrastructure facilities in private, unaided professional institutions and also ensure quality education in these institutions and take stringent action against defaulting institutions, including cancellation of permission.

“There is also a need for reviewing the affiliation of the engineering colleges by the universities in case of such colleges which do not adhere to the requirements,” the committee stated.

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao while addressing industrialists here on Tuesday said that his government would not encourage non-serious colleges and non-serious students.