Many private institutions have been imparting technical and management courses without the mandatory approval from the All India Council for Technical Education, HRD minister Kapil Sibal informed Lok Sabha on Wednesday. Thre are in all 201 such institutions across the country.

The big names include Indian School of Business, Hyderabad; ICFAI Business School, Delhi, Gurgaon and Chandigarh; Ansal Institute of Technology, Gurgaon; Indian Institute of Planning and Management, Delhi; K R Mangalam Global Institute of Management, New Delhi; J K Business School Gurgaon; M B Birla Institute of Management Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bangalore; and Sikkim Manipal University, Bangalore.

Maharashtra tops the list with 74 such institutions followed by 24 in Delhi, 22 in Karnataka, 19 in Tamil Nadu and 13 each in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

AICTE regulations say that no technical institution shall be started and no new courses or programmes shall be introduced without obtaining prior approval of the council, Sibal said. Besides, University Grants Commission has identified 21 fake universities running in violation of provisions of the UGC Act, he said.

The 21 fake universities include eight in Uttar Pradesh and seven in Delhi, Sibal said. UGC and AICTE give wide publicity to caution students and parents not to take admission in fake and unapproved institutions, he said. “Statutory bodies have also been advised to launch effective campaigns against such institutions which are fake and to take appropriate action under law. The media has also been requested to refuse to publish misleading advertisements by such institutions,” Sibal said.

He said that the government would bring a legislative proposal to restrict unfair practices in educational institutions. The proposal provides for punishing unrecognised institutions which claim to be recognised by statutory authorities and induce students to take admission.
‘NOT RUNNING ANY UNAUTHORIZED COURSES’

Two months ago we met the principal secretary and higher education minister regarding this.

We have presented all the related documents to the minister. They were satisfied with our details and told us that they will inform the Centre about the same. We are not running any unauthorised courses. We have applied for approval from All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) and have documents to support it. We will speak to the state government again about this at the earliest — A Krishnamurthy | SECRETARY,

BHARTIYA VIDYA BHAVAN There must be a mistake as there is no Sikkim Manipal University in Bangalore. It’s in Sikkim, set up with a joint initiative from the Sikkim government. The university offers programmes under medical, management, engineering and distance education, which all are approved by the individual regulatory body. The University is also approved by University Grants Commission (UGC) — V Sivarama Krishnan | PRINCIPAL OFFICER, MANIPAL EDUCATION AND ACADEMIC SENATE MEMBER, SIKKIM MANIPAL UNIVERSITY