Madurai Kamaraj University audit report exposes holes

[1]

Opening a can of worms, the audit report of Madurai Kamaraj University (MKU) has revealed that full-time MBA and BBA courses were offered by the university across the country through an MoU signed with an unrecognised private institution, grossly violating all norms. The unapproved courses involved collection of Rs 120 crore as fee from 10,000 students across India.

The MoU was signed during May 2005 with the national institute of applied management (NIAM), New Delhi, to run 52 study centres across the nation violating jurisdiction norms of the MKU Act No 33 enacted by the TN Assembly while the territorial jurisdiction of the university was limited to four districts.

The audit report, a copy of which is with Deccan Chronicle, also points out that the regular MBA programme has not been approved by AICTE, UGC and DEC. The students who had taken up the course are not eligible for Central government jobs as per the joint notification of UGC, AICTE and DEC.

Further, UGC secretary R.K. Chauhan, in a letter dated April 16, 2009, to the state government, said the Supreme Court has categorically stated that state/state private universities cannot operate beyond the territorial jurisdiction of their state and had issued public notices in leading dailies cautioning students from taking up such courses.

Highlighting the conspiracy angle, the audit report says the university received only Rs 30 crore, against Rs 72 crore, violating the norm that under any distance education programme, only 40 per cent is given to the study centre.

Despite the MKU Act and statutes ruling that only the registrar is empowered to sign the cheque, in the case of NIAM, it was jointly signed by the registrar and academic coordinator who conducted these courses.

In an RTI petition filed by a student, Ms R. Uma Maheshwari of Virudhunagar, who had taken up the regular MBA course, the public information officer and deputy secretary V.K. Jaiswal of the UGC has responded that MKU, Madurai, cannot start the distance education programme outside its territorial jurisdiction without due approval.

And for Benny Joel, another victim of the fraudulent course, the Singapore government cancelled his S pass (applied to work in Singapore) stating that the MBA degree that he got after paying Rs 1.8 lakh was unapproved.