Imphal, July 18 2010: Close on the heels of accusations by student unions of various colleges that the Government has failed to ensure proper infrastructure, Education Minister L Jayentakumar has expressed confidence that appointment process of regular college Principals would be completed within August this year.

In an exclusive chat with The Sangai Express today, the Minister said the Government is aware of problems faced by the students due to absence of regular principals in some of the colleges and hectic efforts are being made to redress the situation at the earliest.

Jayentakumar also conceded that apart from upsetting academic atmosphere owing to absence of regular principals impact of the problem has been affecting functioning of the Directorate of Higher education for the office is being run either by an official of Additional Director rank or through a Commissioner as the Ex-Officio Director.

Explaining that the charge of Director, as per existing norms, ought to be handled by an incumbent who had served as Regular Principal of a college, he also informed that the Manipur Public Service Commission would be entrusted to initiate relevant processes for appointment of regular principals at all the college.

The process had to be delayed as the MPSC was embroiled in a controversy concerning reservation of post for the physically challenged candidate/s which has been addressed now, Jayentakumar confided.

when this reporter pointed out to the Minister that non-appointment of regular principals and absence of adequate infrastructure are some crucial factors affecting academic activities of colleges even as the students are supposed to prepare for two examinations in an academic session after the semester system had been introduced from the current session, the Minister claimed that a tentative list has been placed before the Government for infrastructure development.

Further conveying that budgetary allocation has already been made for infrastructure development, he said utilisation of the earmarked allocation would depend on approval of the House when the Demand for Education would be discussed on July 23 .

While exuding confidence of the members' consent to the Education demand, he maintained that infrastructure development work would commence from the very next day of completing Budget session of the house.

With regard to report of regular teachers' inadequacy in Government colleges, he said services of part-time lecturers are being utilised apart from an ongoing process to effect appointment of regular teachers to overcome the deficiency for which efforts are being made to get approval of the State Cabinet.

On the issue of status of aided colleges, the Minister clarified that there is no financial allocation from the State for infrastructure development of these institutions as it is prerogative of the university Grant Commission (UGC) to extend financial assistance based on the performance.

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