Partha warns colleges of stern action against taking more students than the number of earmarked seats

Kolkata: State Education minister Partha Chatterjee on Tuesday warned the colleges across the state not to take more students than their earmarked seats and warned the authorities of stern action if they are found flouting norms.

"I am making it clear to the principals of all colleges that if it is found that the intake is more than the earmarked seats, the government will act tough and I will not yield to any request from anybody," Chatterjee said at the inauguration of a new building of South Calcutta Law College at Kasba.

According to Chatterjee, there are 4.5 lakh seats in all the colleges spread across the state. "Why should there be jostling for space at a handful of institutions like Presidency, St Xavier's, Ashutosh College, City College etc? There are 546 colleges but complaints of taking more students are against a handful. A single rotten potato in a sack can prove harmful to the entire lot. This may be the case when you go for taking students beyond capacity. I have instructed the Director of Public Instruction (DPI) to visit the colleges within seven days after completion of admission process and find out if there is any such irregularity. All admissions should be on the basis of merit," the minister reiterated.

DPI of the state Higher Education department Jayasri Ray Chaudhuri was on the dais when Chatterjee delivered his address.

Speaker of the state Legislative Assembly Biman Banerjee regretted that there has hardly been any IAS officer from the state in recent times, even though the Chief Minister is striving hard to position Bengal to play a lead role in the education sector.

Chatterjee said: "We are coming up with a Centre of Excellence on administrative service training at New Town, where we will rope in experts to offer training in churning out IAS officers."

The minister added that the proposal for setting up such a centre was forwarded from the state Higher Education department to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee a few months ago and the latter had given the nod.

It may be mentioned that it was Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who had laid the foundation stone for the building in May 2012 and had allocated Rs 1 crore for it.

The Education minister appealed to the authorities of the Law College not to increase admission fees and announced a grant of Rs 5 lakh for creation of a state-of-the-art library.

State Law and Labour minister Moloy Ghatak and state Disaster Management minister Javed Ahmed Khan were also present at the programme.