AICTE cracks whip on mgmt institutes

NAGPUR: After cracking whip on engineering colleges, the All India Council of Technical Education now targets institutes offering management courses. The AICTE has denied permission to many renowned colleges in Maharashtra to run their management programmes from the next academic session.

Of the 117 colleges in Ahmednagar, Pune, Nashik, Aurangabad, Mumbai, Raigad and Nagpur, the AICTE has not approved courses of 14 management institutes. While maximum number of institutes (six) from Pune have been denied permission by the prime regulatory body, four institutes from Nashik were not allowed to run management programmes. Besides, five management institutions, including GS College of Commerce, have applied for the closure of these course due to various reasons.

In Nagpur, the apex advisory body has not approved Master of Business Administration course of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Department of Management Science and Research (DAIMSR), Deekshabhoomi and Shikshan Mandal's Department of Management Science and Research on Amravati Road (at GS College) from 2007-08 term. The status of both these colleges have been shown as 'pending' by the AICTE. Additionally, Department of Advance Management Studies belonging to Shikshan Mandal's GS College of Commerce at Civil Lines in Wardha has itself sent a letter to AICTE to close its MBA course.

Talking to TOI, the director of DMSR at GS College Prof P M Kolte admitted that initially AICTE had disapproved their MBA course taking an objection on its management running diploma in business management course. However, the GS management then discontinued the one-year DBM course. Kolte added that he had attended the hearing at AICTE headquarters in Delhi and informed the officials that they had discontinued their DBM course. The AICTE then cleared the 'pending' status of GS College's management course, he claimed.

"Every year, the AICTE inspects all management colleges to check whether they are following norms or not and then clears specific quota for colleges. They also reduce or increase in-take capacity as per facilities offered by respective institutions. They had objected to DBM course run by our college and kept our status pending. But during hearing in Delhi, they have given green signal to our MBA programme," he said. When pointed put that AICTE website still showing its status as 'pending', he remarked that the website may not be updated. He declined to comment on closure of their sister concern's MBA programme in Wardha.

DAIMSR director Sudhir Fulzele said that it was "by mistake" that AICTE has mentioned their status as 'pending' as their college has received green signal from apex body to conduct its MBA programme. "Actually, we had approached them with our Master in Computer Management programme along with regular MBA course. AICTE is not the authority for sanctioning MCM course.

Source:The Times Of India