Private varsities bill gets nod despite opposition

Punjab assembly passed two controversial bills on Friday, paving the way for two private universities to come up in the state even as the treasury benches ridiculed private varsities terming them as teaching shops set up to mint money.

Even as the opposition boycotted the session and did not debate the bills, the treasury benches seemed to have taken over the opposition's role as several legislators of the ruling SAD-BJP alliance slammed the private universities and raised apprehension that these would not be in the interest of the students. Despite this, the Desh Bhagat University Bill and the DAV University Bill were okayed.

SAD MLA Som Prakash said, "Lovely Professional University was set up in 2005 and has more than 25,000 students from 26 nations. But... the standard of education needs to be monitored. In a survey done by metro man E Sreedharan, it was found that only 21% of MBA students are capable of jobs, only 12% of engineers can be recruited directly and the rest need training and 36% of students passing out of private universities are not qualified for jobs despite training."

Nirmal Singh, another SAD MLA, said, "Private institutions have no seats for the poor. Even at places where they have taken panchayat land from villages on discounted prices they have not bothered to give concession to village children. Government must ensure that they follow norms."