'No proposal to hold central entrance for tech inst admissions'

New Delhi, Dec 11 (UNI) The Government today said it had no proposal to have any new centralised examination system for entrance into various technical institutions in the country.

Minister of State for Human Resources D Purandeswari told the Rajya Sabha, in a written reply, that there was a Joint Entrance Examinations for various IITs and All India Engineering Entrance Examinations, at the national level, for various National Institutes of Technology and certain Deemed Universities. The states conduct their own Central Entrance Examinations through designated agencies, she added.

The Minister said there was no proposal to set up an Indian Institute of Technology in Ahmedabad, for making the city the first in the country be a home for an IIM and an IIT also. As regards Bhubaneshwar, she said that IIT Kharagpur had set up a campus in that city offering a PG diploma in Information Technology and Business Administration. NIT Rourkela was one of the premier national level institutions for technical education in the country, she said, adding that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had announced setting up of a National Institute of Science Education Research in the city.

On supplementaries relating to fees charged by professional colleges, she said the issue was administered by concerned states and Fee Committees, based on the directions of Supreme Court.

Noting that the states were expected to monitor any violations, she also denied reports that students from well-off families, posing as NRIs, were getting admissions to engineering and management institutions by paying huge sums of money. Admissions were based on criteria fixed by the state level Admission Committees and the the guidelines by the All India Council for Technical Education had made it imcumbent upon the institutions to ensure that the bonafides of the student, background and track records were in order and the States were expected to ensure transparency in admissions to NRI quota, the Minister said.

Answering questions on ragging and violence in educational campuses, she said some instances had come to the notice of the government but the Centre did not interfere in the day-to-day affairs of these institutions and noted that these institutions were empowered to to act against erring students. ''The University Grants Commission, which is responsible for coordination in maintenance of standards also took cognisance of violence and indiscipline affecting standards,'' she said, adding that the UGC had been asked to ensure compliance of Supreme Court's directions on J M Lyngdoh's recommendations by various universities and institutions.

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