Chandigarh, July 25
Now more poor and not-so-poor meritorious students can hope to become engineers and corporate executives in Punjab. The state government is set to pioneer a first-of-its-kind scheme under which students having a family income of up to Rs 2.5 lakh per annum will be provided free education in engineering, management, pharmacy and architecture in technical institutions affiliated to Punjab Technical University (PTU) and approved by the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).
To be implemented in collaboration with the Punjab Unaided Technical Institutions Association (PUTIA), an apex body of the
142 private institutions in Punjab, and PTU, the decision will prove to be a boon for students from
the not-so-privileged sections of society.
Under the scheme, 10 per cent additional seats totalling about 1,500 would be created in over 40 technical colleges approved by the AICTE. "The beneficiary students will not be charged even a penny", Naresh Nagpal, director, technical education, Punjab, told The Tribune over phone here today.
Nagpal informed that the government had already worked out the modalities for the innovative scheme and a memorandum of understanding(MoU) would be signed by the PUTIA, PTU and the state government in a couple a days. The scheme would be implemented from the current academic session, Nagpal clarified.
A consensus on the scheme was hammered out at a meeting between Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and PUTIA representatives last month. In fact, guidelines of the AICTE already makes provisions for the tuition fee waiver for certain categories, including the economically backward students in the
technical institutions in the country.
However, Punjab’s “revolutionary decision” goes a step ahead of the AICTE guidelines as no charges, such as examination fee, transport fee and hostel charges, besides the the tuition fee, will be charged from the students.
Saying that the decision had been taken as part of its social objective, PUTIA president J.S. Dhaliwal claimed that it would go a long way in providing technical education to the poor andthe middle class. In the backdrop of the dismal state of education in rural Punjab, PUTIA had gone a step further in offering 10 per cent reservations in non-AICTE courses which were a hit with rural students, Dhaliwal added.
