Guwahati, Apr 2 : The absence of a government policy in the last few years has resulted in a huge amount of tuition fees lying unutilised in college coffers since 2005.
Sources in the education department said over Rs 10 crore was lying unused with 189 provincialised colleges, forcing the co-ordination committee of teachers, principals, employees and librarians of these institutions to pressure the government into coming out with a clear-cut policy on utilisation of funds.
The government, sources said, had stopped touching the tuition fees after these colleges were provincialised in 2005.
Before provincialisation, 30 per cent of the fees went to the colleges’ contingency fund, while 70 per cent went towards payment of salaries.
Following sustained pressure from the staff of these colleges for over two decades, Dispur provincialised all the 189 colleges.
Assam College Teachers’ Association (ACTA) top brass A.K. Das and Pradip Dutta said they feared that if the funds were not used, some financially weak colleges might land in a deep financial mess.
“This status quo is not good for financially weak colleges which might be tempted to spend the funds on development activities. If the government decides to get the funds transferred to its coffers, then these colleges may not be able to do so,” Das said.
After provincialisation, the government bore the expenditure of the salaries to permanent college staff. “All the posts in these colleges became provincialised vis-Ã -vis salary and pension. Earlier we did not receive pension,” Dutta added. As many as 10,274 teaching and non-teaching staff received the benefits of provincialisation.
The governing bodies of these colleges previously received grants-in-aid from the government through the directorate of higher education to make up for the deficit in salary, after deducting the amount raised through tuition fees.
“After provincialisation, the salary and pension are being released by Dispur. The tuition fee now remains untouched,” department sources said.
Among the proposals submitted to the government on how to spend the funds are creation of infrastructure as and where required, like a common room, library and laboratory.
“We have also proposed that these be spent on increasing the honorarium of teachers serving in non-sanctioned posts,” Dutta added.
The government has asked each college about the amount it has in hand. “But it (the government) has to move a little fast. Dilly dallying will only invite more trouble like accounting problems,” Dutta said.
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