Performance audit of ITI, polytechnic staff on the cards

Rajmeet Singh

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 12

The performance of the teaching staff in government and private technical institutions will now be under the scrutiny of the Department of Technical Education and Industrial Training.

After initiating an audit of private educational institutes for suspected embezzlement of the post-matric scholarship funds, the department has now decided to conduct an academic and administrative audit of all 226 polytechnics and 366 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs), both government and private, in addition to the performance audit of the teaching staff.

Officials of the Punjab State Board of Technical Education and Industrial Training have been asked to prepare a format of the audit parameters and send teams in field to get feedback.

The audit report would have to be submitted by March 31 and after this, 15 days would be given to the institutes to work on the shortcomings. The entire process of audit would be completed by May 31 and if the institutes failed to take corrective measures, action would be initiated, which might include de-affiliation of such institutes.

“Though annual inspections are carried out by the department, a standard format of parameters will enable the government to standardise academic and infrastructure parameters,” said Technical Education Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, who today convened a meeting of the department officials on the issue.

Sources said in 2010-11, the then Principal Secretary, Technical Education, Suresh Kumar, had initiated a similar exercise, but it was later discontinued.

In the past, there have been serious audit observations about crores of rupees spent on infrastructure which was never used in government institutions, besides irregular deployment of teaching staff.