Engineering colleges fume at government order on grant

Seven private-aided engineering colleges are up in arms as the State government has asked them to repay grants they received between 2003 and 2009 under the World Bank-assisted Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP).

The Department of Technical Education, the nodal agency for TEQIP, has written to the colleges, informing them that the recovery will start from 2017-18 financial year.

TEQIP is aimed at improving infrastructure at technical education institutions in India, and approved by the Union government in 2002. Under the first phase - February 2003 to March 2009 - Karnataka received Rs 162 crore for 14 engineering colleges. This included two government colleges, seven private-aided colleges and five private-unaided colleges. The state government pitched in with a share of 20%, which is Rs 32.40 crore. Of this, the DTE says Rs 24.62 crore (76%) is recoverable because it was a loan, whereas the remaining 24% was a grant.

“According to a MoU we signed with the State government, private-aided colleges were supposed to get a grant and not a loan,” the principal of one of the colleges said, requesting anonymity.

The affected colleges are: BMS College of Engineering and Dr Ambedkar Institute of Technology (Bengaluru), Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering and National Institute of Engineering (Mysuru), Basaveshwara Engineering College (Bagalkot), Malnad College of Engineering (Hassan) and PDA Engineering College (Kalaburagi).