Probe: Tech board acting on unnamed complaints

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 22

Officials handling affiliation work in the state’s Directorate of Technical Education and Industrial Training have been harassing the management of private industrial training institutes (ITIs) on anonymous complaints.

This follows the arrest of Jagjit Singh, Joint Director in the Technical Education Department, for accepting a bribe of Rs 50,000. In its probe, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is learnt to have come across official records wherein the management of at least two ITIs were issued show-cause notice for disaffiliation on the basis of anonymous complaints, revealed sources privy to the investigation.

The complainant in the CBI trap case, GS Sidhu, owner of Onkar Industrial Training Institute, Maur Mandi, was one of the two institutes to face departmental inspection on the basis of a complaint. It had been alleged that the institute was running without proper lab equipment, charging fee from students of reserved category and giving admission to students who did not attend classes.

The other ITI that faced similar inspection was Mukesh Memorial Industrial Training Centre, Patiala, run by Himashu Gupta, president of the Punjab ITI Association.

He was also issued a show-cause notice by the department on the basis of a report submitted by the principals of Government ITIs at Patiala and Rajpura.

Interestingly, the show-cause notice was issued on January 27 after a Joint Director of the department had said that as the complaint was anonymous, no action should be taken. The CBI is in the process of procuring related documents, it is learnt.

When contacted, Gupta said he had already lodged a complaint regarding the anonymous complaint with the Director, Technical Education.