PTU acting VC conspiring to close varsity: Garcha

LUDHIANA: Former Punjab technical education minister Jagdish Singh Garcha, on Friday, accused acting vice-chancellor of Punjab Technical University (PTU) Romila Dubey of trying to close down the university by accepting hefty bribes from vested interests whose businesses were suffering due to the courses being offered by PTU.
Addressing mediapersons here, Garcha was also unsparing in his comments about chief minister Amarinder Singh, whom he accused of dancing to the tune of bureaucrats and advisors in matters pertaining to the university.
Garcha alleged that Dubey, also Punjab technical education secretary, had accepted 25 lakh in advance from private players imparting technical education. He said a deal had been struck with these players for the closure of the university, which, he claimed, has been imparting quality education.
Tracing the origin of the alleged conspiracy, Garcha said private players like NIIT and Aptech had found their business under threat as the fee structure offered by PTU was much lower than theirs. Before PTU entered the scene, these institutions were handling annual business worth Rs 100 crore, Garcha claimed. It was under the same conspiracy that the search committee constituted by the government had failed to select a new VC after Guram’s retirement as the committee was headed by Dubey, Garcha alleged.
Also accusing Dubey of taking arbitrary decisions, Garcha wondered why the CM had not taken concrete action against her even after he had raised the issue of irregularities committed by her through the ‘call attention motion’ during recently concluded budget session of the assembly.
So much so, the then technical education minister Surjit Kaur Kalkat had raised a written objection to the way Dubey had awarded a contract to National Building Construction Company for construction of technical institutions despite the government policy of engaging state public works department for this purpose.