During transfer of Lehragaga institute assets, Finance Dept directives 'flouted'

Chandigarh, April 28

The Department of Technical Education and Industrial Training transferred the building and other assets of the Baba Hira Singh Bhattal Institute of Engineering and Technology, Lehragaga, to the Baba Hira Singh Bhattal Institute of Engineering and Technology Society, in violation of the Finance Department instructions.

After the Punjab and Haryana High Court ordered disposal of the property of the institute to pay dues of its employees, affected staffers have pointed out that a committee of senior functionaries of the department got the assets of the institute transferred to the society despite government instructions to give assets of the institute on lease. The assets were transferred to the society that has not been holding meetings.

In 2019, the Punjab Government proposed to close the Baba Hira Singh Bhattal Institute of Engineering and Technology, Lehragaga, and use its premises to open an ITI or a degree college. A committee of vice-chancellors of IK Gujral Punjab Technical University, Kapurthala, and Maharaja Ranjit Singh Punjab Technical University, Bathinda, had pointed out that the annual expenditure of the institute was Rs 11 crore, against an annual income of Rs 1.94 crore. Hence, there was a deficit of Rs 9 crore.

Constituted by the then Technical Education Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, the committee recommended that all students be shifted to other affiliated colleges though technical universities at Kaputhala and Bathinda.

The committee had left it to the board of governors of the college to set up an ITI as the state was opening 19 such new institutes.

Channi had then stated that the institute would be used to run some existing courses along with an ITI.

The employees, who had filed writ petitions complaining about non-payment of their salary since December 2019, had pointed out that they had been waiting for their salaries for 41 months as the institute was facing a severe financial crisis.

The employees said the department had earlier stated in the court that the services of the employees had been retrenched, but later failed to produce any documents in this regard.

Started as a government polytechnic in 1995, it was upgraded to an autonomous institute named after freedom fighter of Praja Mandal movement late Baba Hira Singh Bhattal, father of former Chief Minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal.