minister atishi
– Photo: Amar Ujala
Expansion
Irregularities have come to light in 12 DU colleges funded by the Delhi government. Making allegations, Education Minister Atishi has directed the Higher Education Secretary to investigate irregularities in these colleges. He pointed out that basic norms have been violated by the colleges. Principals and administrative officers guilty of illegally created posts and appointments in these colleges should be identified.
At the same time, strict action has been recommended against these officers including recovery of salaries paid since 2015 to the staff members appointed to illegal posts. He said that these colleges are funded from the government treasury, hence they should be held accountable for any misuse of funds.
1365 posts of teaching staff and 1173 posts of non-teaching staff were created in these colleges. Of these, government approval has been obtained for only 426 and 215 posts. There are currently 939 teaching posts and 958 vacant non-teaching posts in the colleges. These posts have been created illegally from the very beginning, hence all the appointments (ad-hoc or permanent) made on these posts are illegal.
Irregularities have resulted in 1897 teaching and non-teaching staff being appointed illegally by these colleges. He said it was the responsibility of the college principal and administrative officials to ensure that legal procedures were followed. However, the existing employees cannot be punished but strict action should be taken against the erring officials of these colleges.
Colleges did not submit audit report
Atishi said that he has been told that these colleges have not even submitted the audit report. The money provided to these colleges is public money and the government is accountable to the taxpayers. These colleges are violating. The audit directorate of the government has included special audit of 6 of these 12 colleges in its report.
This was done in 2020. In this, serious irregularities of these colleges have come to light. These lapses involve expenditure of hundreds of crores of rupees from the government exchequer. This includes many colleges including Acharya Narendra Dev College, Aditi Mahavidyalaya, Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies, Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar College.
Contracts worth crores were signed by ignoring the rules
Contracts worth crores of rupees were given for security and sanitation work in these colleges without following the rules. The basic accounting norms of books of account and provision of pattern of assistance for release of grants-in-aid as approved by the Directorate of Higher Education, Government of Delhi have also not been followed.