HP education regulator slaps Rs 34 lakh fine on NCFSE group

But the commission asked it to bring the original documents.The commission said it received a complaint on October 22 on the advertisement about admission to the courses and agreements signed with the 17 institutions.The complaint also pointed out that the above courses were not in the schedule of the MSME Development Centre from April 2022 to March 2023.The commission then declared the admissions as invalid and imposed the penalty and refund of the fee.

A hefty penalty of nearly Rs 34.05 lakh has been imposed on the NCFSE group of institutions by the state's educational commission for violating the regulations of a teacher education programme, officials said.

The NCFSE, however, termed the fine imposed by the Himachal Pradesh Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Commission (HPPEIRC) as ''ridiculous'' and said ''this arbitrary order will be challenged in the Himachal Pradesh High Court''. Seventeen institutions have admitted students in the two-year Diploma in Nursery Teacher Training (DNTT) and the one-year Nursery Teacher Training (NTT) courses after getting affiliation from the NCFSE in violation of regulations of the National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE), the officials said.

Declaring the admissions as ''invalid'', the HPPEIRC, directed the erring 17 institutions to refund the fee with nine per cent interest.

The HPPEIRC also imposed a penalty of Rs 34,05,480 on the NCFSE group of institutions, commission chairman Atul Kaushik said.

In a statement, the NCFSE said, ''The NTT and the DNTT courses are fully evaluated and verified courses under a skill-based verification process and the courses are being run in other states like Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir without any interference and several institutions have trained thousands of students.'' ''The order is an encroachment on the rights of the NCFSE authorised centres and tarnishing its image. The order also amounts to challenging the central government public undertakings which do not come under the state regulatory commission,'' it said. The fees charged for the DNTT and the NTT courses were Rs 38,940 and Rs 24,780 and the total fee recovered was Rs 17,02,740. Only eight institutions provided the details of admissions and fees, Kaushik told PTI on Thursday.. The Elementary Education director has been asked to initiate criminal proceedings against the institutions by filing an FIR, he said.

Taking note of a newspaper advertisement on some of the courses offered by the NCFSE , the commission asked the respondent to appear before it with the agreements executed with institutions, schools and colleges, Kaushik added.

The courses, which included those on nursery teacher training, Early Childhood Care Education and Yoga Teacher Training, were under the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Development Centre in Meerut. The respondent appeared before the commission on August 18 and submitted a copy of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed with the MSME Development Centre. But the commission asked it to bring the original documents.

The commission said it received a complaint on October 22 on the advertisement about admission to the courses and agreements signed with the 17 institutions.

The complaint also pointed out that the above courses were not in the schedule of the MSME Development Centre from April 2022 to March 2023.

The commission then declared the admissions as ''invalid'' and imposed the penalty and refund of the fee.