CAG says more that half of NIT programmes not accredited

In its report tabled in Parliament today, the national auditor said that of the 88 under graduate and 191 post graduate courses in the institutes, 45 under-graduate programmes and 137 PG programmes were not accredited with the NBA.

"This indicated that the quality of education of these courses could not be ensured on the basis of the criteria fixed by the NBA," it said.

Referring to the five streams of civil engineering, electronics and communication engineering, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering and IT engineering, it said admission of students remained much below the intake capacity and above than that during some years.

"1.38 to 42.31 per cent seats in under-graduate courses and 3.13 to 87 per cent seats in PG courses remained vacant in some of the years."

In contrast, "they admitted students more than the intake in the range of 0.83 per cent to 23.89 per cent in under graduate courses and 3.30 to 116.67 per cent in PG courses" in some years, the Comptroller and Auditor General said.

It further observed that new courses were introduced without ascertaining the need for them and recommended conduct of surveys for assessing the requirement in various fields.

It said NIT Durgapur and Silchar introduced two new under graduate courses during 2009-10 but 37 and 10 seats respectively constituting 62 per cent and 33 per cent of the respective intake capacity remained vacant.

Similarly, in 12 new PG courses introduced during 2006-07 to 20080-9 by NIT Kurukshetra, Bhopal, Silachar and Surathkul, 52 to 83 per cent seats remained vacant, it said.

On the research front, it said 60 projects undertaken by NIT Calicut and Kurukshetra during 2005-10, only 27 projects could be completed by March 31, 2010.

The auditor stressed on an internal audit mechanism to help in efficient working of these institutes, whose stature were raised to that of national institutes between 2002 and 2006.