By Correspondent

Puducherry, The Centralised Admission Committee (CENTAC) has been considered by the parents with lower income, as a God-send gift to enable their students to have their higher technical and medical education, without spending excessively for their bright future. But, now almost all of them are seemingly depressed by the colossal demands made by the so-called institutions. The people of Puducherry are waiting for last one year for the Government announcement about the free structure and the quantum of special fees to be collected by each majority of private medical institution did not return excess fees, violating the undertaking given to the CENTAC.

In some colleges where the excess fee was refunded, the management forced the students to pay back the additional amount during the time of examination. Further, in the second year, the students were charged higher fees than the first year, contrary to the assurance given by the Chief Minister N. Rangasamy in the Assembly. Hence, many parents with lower income are in depressed and confused spirits over admitting their students in self-financing medical colleges due to the apprehensions caused by the over-charging, on some pretext or the other. Even though the Government takes care of the tuition fees, the special fees have to be paid by the parents and that, too for four years. With no receipts given by the college immediately on admission, the students have much more burden in approaching banks for loans. So far the students sponsored by the CENTAC remain clueless, regarding the fees they have to remit for admission. Hence, confusion prevails over whether they should remit the fees as sought by the institution or wait for the Government to fix the fees and information in this regard.

People are rather surprised to see the conundrum being displayed by Government policy-makers. Though the Government of Puducherry itself is a coalition one, has failed to follow policy-made by the neighboring Tamilnadu Government. There, the Government has formed a Committee chaired by Justice Raman and whose report have to be strictly adhered to by all the private colleges in Tamilnadu and whenever and wherever the committee’s rules and regulations being found violated, then and there, the Government could take up the baton of law to cancel their permission. Even both the High Court of Madras and the Supreme Court of India, have approved the recommendations and regulations framed by Justice Raman Committee and gave the power to the Government of Tamilnadu to take any punitive actions against those self-financing institutions, even going to the extent of canceling their permissions for running any colleges. So, the people of Puducherry have been very keenly observing whether their Government, too, will go to such an extent for implementing the CENTAC Policy in their Union Territory.

Regional