Follow up and appeal on RTI application to DEC, their reply and my first appeal

Dear all, 

As you are aware about my previous blog post about DEC, its wrongdoing and possible lot of mismanagement and corruption.

I was closely monitoring development happening in distance education and the role Distance Education council (A body under ministry of HRD, under the aegis of IGNOU who are supposed to control and monitor distance education in India, like AICTE, PCI, MCI and such other autonomous bodies) was playing. I found that institutes are selling degrees like freebies and some of them were not even universities but still managed to get recognition from DEC. Finally I sent an RTI application on 20th June 2012 and soon after that ex VC of IGNOU, V Rajashekharan Pillai  was booked in graft and misdoing charges and allowing approval wrongly to Sikkim Manipal University and Punjab Technical University. These two universities alone made around 1500 crore profit from distance learning courses.

I disagree to the figure and institutes. I can bet not only Pillai there are possibly many people involve in this graft case. Apart from these institutes there are many others have made money from distance learning courses violating the prescribed standard regulations. To name few are SCDL, Welingkar, ICFAI University, LPU, Assam Down Town University and many other private universities who are mushrooming at different states.

I am opposing this rotten distance learning system for a long time and repeatedly writing it in my blog and during doing career counselling to students through my blog, through shiksha.com and through other means.

I filed an RTI application to DEC on June 20th, (much before booking of Pillai by CBI) and did not get reply. Then I filed first appeal and got reply through mail (it is indeed very nice move of the DEC, first appellate authroity- N Lele, Director, DEC) and they sent me scanned copy of the the reply where they mentioned that they have already replied me (I do not want to blame them for this). However when I saw the reply, it was full of surprise for me.

I am posting my view and reply to them (DEC)

To

Dr. Nalini A Lele

Director and Appellate Authority

Distance Education Council

IGNOU

New Delhi

Dear Dr. Lele,

Please find attached first appeal against reply received to my application for information under RTI Act 2005, section 6(1) and do the needful.

Regards

Govind

_____________________________________________________________

The Right to Information Act, 2005

First Appeal for DEC, IGNOU under section 19

To,

The First Appellate Authority under RTI Act

Director

Distance Education Council

IGNOU, Maidan Garhi

New Delhi - 110068

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sir/ Madam,

As I am aggrieved by decision/no decision of Central/State Public Information Officer, I hereby file this appeal for your kind decision.

1. Details of appellant

1.1 Full Name:Govind R. Sharma

1.2. Full Address: A8/229, Dev Aashish Apartment, College Road, Dhamankar Naka, Bhiwandi, Thane

            PIN: 421305, MS, India

1.3 Phone/Cell No.:+91-2522-257597/ +91-9960704146

1.4 Email ID: govind@hopein.in/ hopegovind@gmail.com

2. Details of Central (CPIO):

2.1 Name/Designation: Sh. Anil Karwal,Assistant Registrar

2.2 Full Address:DEC, IGNOU, Maidan Garhi, Bew Delhi- 68

2.3 Name of Public Authority: Distance Education Council, IGNOU

3. Details of RTI application to CPIO/SPIO: see annexure 1

Date of Application:20.06.2012

Mailed on: 20.06.2012 by blue dart courier WB no. 46037859011

Date of receipt by CPIO/SPIO: 21.06.2012 at 12.25 PM

4. Particulars of payment of filing fee:

Paid Rs.10/- by IPO No. 005 604801 dated: 20.06.2012

5. Details of information sought:

Please see annexure1

6. Particulars of Decision of CPIO/SPIO:

Letter reference No: DEC/G -107 N o1.97 /20 12 I

Date of CPIO/SPIO's Decision: 06.08.2012

Date of receipt of decision by the appellant: 06.08.2012

7. Reasons/grounds for this appeal:

Reply received is incomplete and false

10. Prayer/relief sought for:

Should be provided correct and detailed information and PIO should be fined and appropriate action should be taken for providing wrong and misleading informtion

11. Grounds for prayer/relief sought for:

Incomplete and incorrect information received from PIO

12. Personal Presence at hearing: YES / NO: No.

13. Enclosures: Photocopies of original RTI application with its enclosures (Annexure 1), mail from the bluedart courier confirming delivery (Annexure 2)

14. Declaration:

I hereby state that the information and particulars given above are true to the best of my knowledge and

belief. I also declare that this matter is not previously filed with any information commission nor is pending with any Court or tribunal or authority.

Place: Mumbai

Date:06.08.2012

Signature of appellant

P.S. Please refer office memorandum dated 09-07-2007 issued by DoPT, Govt. of India.

Annexure 1

Application for information under Right to Information Act 2005 section 6 (1)

To

The Public Information Officer (PIO)

Sh. Anil Karwal

Assistant Registrar

INDIRA GANDHI NATIONAL OPEN UNIVERSITY (IGNOU)

MAIDAN GARHI,

NEW DELHI-110 068.

INDIA

Dear Sir,

Please provide me following information

1.      List of all the universities/ deemed universities/ institutes approved by DEC for offering courses under distance mode (Your website is not updated, in the pdf file you say approved upto 2007 etc but it is already 2012 and there is no information on this)

2.      Please provide name of the authorities and designated person with their name and designation who took decision  to grant permission to these institutes.

3.      Please provide information whether an institute which is not a university or deemed university established by an Act of parliament or a state legislature is allowed to offer degree/ diploma/ certificate programme and whether eligible to take recognition from DEC i.e. Distance Education Council.

4.      Please provide information whether the institute recognized by DEC is recognized only by DEC or the joint committee of AICTE-UGC-DEC.

5.      Please supply information that the PG Diploma in management programme offered in distance learning mode through Welingkar institute, Matunga, Mumbai, SCDL (Symbiosis Centre for Distance Learning), Pune is equivalent to an MBA or any post graduate programme and whether students after completing these diplomas are allowed for higher education like Ph.D

6.      Reason for not including The Global Open University, Nagaland in the DEC website (please refer link http://www.dec.ac.in/sou

7.      As per the norms for management programme mentioned in the DEC website, to offer a management programme through distance learning following criteria should be followed:

ADMISSION/SELECTION PROCEDURE
The students of Post Graduate Programme (MBA) be admitted through entrance test. The written test should assess:
" Reasoning ability
" Comprehension and vocabularies
" General knowledge and
" Quantitative abilities
to check preparedness of a student to undertake management studies. In addition to the above, it could also examine the students capability to learn through Distance Mode. The short listing of candidates may be done according to merit prepared on the basis of total profile which may include :

" performance in written test
" work experience
" previous academic records
" performance in group discussion and interview.

Written test should have at least 75% weightage in overall admission procedure. Where admission is not done on the basis of an All India entrance test, it would be desirable that candidate possesses minimum 50% marks in qualifying examination (Bachelor Degree).

However, none of the instituted approved by DEC is following this criteria and these MBA seats are freely sold (exceptions are IGNOU, YCMOU). Please provide the mechanism DEC has adopted to monitor whether DEC approved institutes are following above mentioned norms as well as all other prescribed norms.

8.      As per the norms prescribed on website, minimum duration of the distance learning MBA should be 3 years however almost all universities offering it in 1 year (under the name executive MBA), 2 years and 2.5 years (even IGNOU self has duration of  2 ½ years. Please provide details on mechanism adopted to monitor the violation and action taken so far alongwith institute’s name, action taken, date of action taken.

9.      Please provide information on the basis of what approval given to all DEC approved institutes.

10.  As per the norms prescribed for ODL institutes, those who are not university but a registered society/ trust affiliated to a university need to take NOC from the university they are affiliated please read the excerpts as follows:

“Other ODL institutions registered as societies/trusts and or privately provided managed institutions/colleges which are affiliated to a university for award of degrees.  Such institutions are required to submit No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the affiliating university for starting distance education at the time of submitting proposal for approval from the DEC.”

In this case, please provide NOC copy of the following institutes alongwith name of the university they are affiliated:

1.      SCDL, Pune

2.      IMT Distance and Open Learning Institute, Ghaziabad

3.      AIMA, Delhi

4.      Institute of Rail Transport

5.      Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha, Tamil Nadu

6.      Institute of Management and Development, New Delhi

7.      Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, Ahmedabad

8.      IILM Institute of higher education, Gurgaon

9.    JK Business school, Gurgaon

10.  Institute of Business Management and Research, Bangalore

11.  Narsee Monji Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai

12.  Balaji Institute of Modern Management, Pune

13.  Mumbai Education Trust, Mumbai

14.  Rasthrabhasha Prachar Samit, Wardha

15.  Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research, Mumbai

16.  Sinhgad Technical Education Society, Pune

17.  MIT School of Distance Education, Pune

18.  Indira International Academy, Indira Group of Institutes, Pune

19.  PSB Educational Foundation, Pune

20.  Indian Institute of MaterialManagement, Navi Mumbai

21.  Asian School of Business Management, Bhubaneswar

22.  Confederation of Indian Industry of Logistics, Chennai

23.  NIMT, Greater Noida

24.  IMT Distance and Open Learning Institute, Ghaziabad

25.  BLS Institute of Management, Ghaziabad

26.  NIMT Institute of Technology and Management, Ghaziabad

11.  Please provide basis on which the approval provided to all institutes approved by DEC

12.  Please provide information on infrastructure available, faculty available and inspection report of the DEC with the name of the committee who evaluated the institutes, things and parameters evaluated, finding and recommendation basis for these institutes.

Please note the following:

1.      As per section 2(f) of the RTI Act

"information" means any material in any form, including records, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, samples, models, data material held in any electronic form and information relating to any private body which can be accessed by a public authority under any other law for the time being in force;

So it includes the word opinion hence information cannot be denied if opinion / reason asked (any word mentioned above for information request where word “reason” is sued should be understand as opinion also).

2.      RTI Act does not refrain an application if lot of questions are asked (there is no such limit prescribed) so this also does not become a reason for rejecting application.

3.      As per section 5, there should be one public information officer to receive application, collect and respond to applicant.

So please do not reply me by saying forwarded this person or that person. As all the information requested above is related to distance learning only, please collect information if you have multiple information officers in your division and respond me collectively.

I am giving extract of the Act here for your ready reference

5	(1)		Every public authority shall, within one hundred days of the enactment of this Act, designate as many officers as the Central Public Information Officers or State Public Information Officers, as the case may be, in all administrative units or offices under it as may be necessary to provide information to persons requesting for the information under this Act.
	(2)		Without prejudice to the provisions of sub-section (1), every public authority shall designate an officer, within one hundred days of the enactment of this Act, at each sub-divisional level or other sub-district level as a Central Assistant Public Information Officer or a State Assistant Public Information Officer, as the case may be, to receive the applications for information or appeals under this Act for forwarding the same forthwith to the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or senior officer specified under sub-section (1) of section 19 or the Central Information Commission or the State Information Commission, as the case may be: Provided that where an application for information or appeal is given to a Central Assistant Public Information Officer or a State Assistant Public Information Officer, as the case may be, a period of five days shall be added in computing the period for response specified under sub-section (1) of section 7.
	(3)		Every Central Public Information Officer or State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, shall deal with requests from persons seeking information and render reasonable assistance to the persons seeking such information.
	(4)		The Central Public Information Officer or State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, may seek the assistance of any other officer as he or she considers it necessary for the proper discharge of his or her duties.
	(5)		Any officer, whose assistance has been sought under sub-section (4), shall render all assistance to the Central Public Information Officer or State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, seeking his or her assistance and for the purposes of any contravention of the provisions of this Act, such other officer shall be treated as a Central Public Information Officer or State Public Information Officer, as the case may be.

As per section 2(j) IV of the RTI Act, I am allowed to take information in floppy, disk (CD/ DVD) or any electronic format. Since it is IT era and every organization uses IT and being a division which deal with education, you must be using the most modern technology and so you have all these data in soft copy format/ in computer. So please provide me these information in compact disc. I am ready to pay Rs. 50 for the same.

Please provide the information at earliest

Regards

Govind Sharma (applicant)

Date: June 20, 2012

Fee paid details:

Indian Postal order no. 005 604801 dated: 20.06.2012 Amount: Rs. 10

Annexure 2

Annexure 3

Reply received and my comment to those replies

Information sought, reply received and my reply to those replies (ground for appeal in details)

1.      List of all the universities/ deemed universities/ institutes approved by DEC for offering courses under distance mode (Your website is not updated, in the pdf file you say approved upto 2007 etc but it is already 2012 and there is no information on this).

Reply Received: The updated list of Universities/Institutes along with their programmes which are recognized by the DEC for offering through distance mode is available on the website of the DEC www.dec.ac.in

under the "Reading DEC Recognition States of University/Institute". The applicant may download the

same from the website.

My objection: I never said no, it is not available. It is available but before the institutes name, it is saying "recognized upto 2007" what about current recognition? When I filed the RTI application it was not updated and after that I can see the column inserted for current years. Even in that, there is no clarity.  So, the information was not updated when I filed this RTI application. So the reply is incorrect and misleading.

2. Please provide name of the authorities and designated person with their name and designation who took decision  to grant permission to these institutes.

Reply received: Distance Education Council is the Apex body for promotion, coordination and maintenance of standards of distance education system in the country which takes decisions regarding recognition to Universities/Institutions. The detail of the Council members of Distance Education,Council is available on DEC website www.dec.ac.in.

My comments: It is ok, but it does not mention about which institute, who took the decision? This means if an institute found given recognition wrongly, the whole council will be held responsible- right? Please clarify on the point.

3.      Please provide information whether an institute which is not a university or deemed university established by an Act of parliament or a state legislature is allowed to offer degree/ diploma/ certificate programme and whether eligible to take recognition from DEC i.e. Distance Education Council.

Reply Received: 

Institutions of National Importance declared under an Act of Parliament; and other ODL Institutions of higher learning which are recognized by the central, state govt/statutory councils/societies/ registered under societies registration act are other Institutions that are eligible to apply for recognition of DEC for offering programmes through distance mode.

My comments: So this means if I register a society under Registration of Societies Act 1860 and Bombay Public Trust Act 1950 but I do not have any authority to offer degree/ Diploma (As I am neither any university nor affiliated to any university) can seek recognition from DEC- please explain. Also explain then difference between a fake institute/ degree and a real one. 

As far as I know, only institute who are an institute established by an Act of Parliament or State Legislature (in short Central Universities, State Universities, Deemed to be university under section 3 and private universities established by an Act of Parliament can offer degree, Diplomas) then how can DEC allow to be recognized to any institute which are not university? Tomorrow when the diploma holders from such institute will go for higher education, will be they admitted- the simple answer is no. Then how DEC ignored this fact. Saying that a society registered under registration of societies Act allowed to get recognized by DEC itself is a big mess and no doubt we can see a bog scam to be unearthed in this.

4.      Please provide information whether the institute recognized by DEC is recognized only by DEC or the joint committee of AICTE-UGC-DEC.

Reply: See attachment

My comments: Seems to be ok, I have no problem with this reply.

5. .      Please supply information that the PG Diploma in management programme offered in distance learning mode through Welingkar institute, Matunga, Mumbai, SCDL (Symbiosis Centre for Distance Learning), Pune is equivalent to an MBA or any post graduate programme and whether students after completing these diplomas are allowed for higher education like Ph.D

Reply: You may write to UGC and AIU regarding equivalence of PGDBA with MBA for admission

to PhD. A copy of your application is being forwarded to the UGC and AIU in this regard.

My comments: I disagree to this reply.  DEC has recognized the institute hence onus to see validity and equivalence of such qualification is lie on DEC only. DEC has recognized their programmes and they are advertising and selling it through various commercial advertisement as POST GRADUATE DIPLOMA  without knowing whether they are equivalent PG Diploma or not. (SCDL has replied me that it is not equivalent to PG degree, MBA but nowhere in the advertisement, they are mentioning about it. Students are mislead and even those who have 3 years polytechnic diploma can do PG Diploma from SCDL, Welingkar and other DEC "recognized" institutes. I asked around 10 questions to SCDL Director Swati Majumdar but she chose not to reply despite of repeated attempt even Symbiosis International University did not chose to reply when I asked whether they will admit their own "SCDL" students for their Ph. D programme. Somebody from welingkar replied me that "it is equivalent to MBA but you cannot do Ph.D, so if it is equivalent to MBA why one cannot do Ph.D- it is highly doubtful.  They are not university so cannot offer programme in any mode I guess). Please explain how DEC can recognize an institute who are not approved by UGC and AICTE at first instance. Also please provide information whether a student who has done courses from institute which is not recognized by UGC but recognized from DEC are eligible to pursue higher education and government job.

6.      Reason for not including The Global Open University, Nagaland in the DEC website (please refer link http://www.dec.ac.in/sou

Reply received: Not recognized as of now

My comment: If a state university face de-recognition how a private institute still not recognized. In UGC's website, UGC has mentioned that it needs to be improved but should be recognized. So now question is that a institute not recognized by UGC can get recognition from DEC but an institute recognized by UGC does not get DEC recognition (Please remember that The Global Open University is still offering courses through various advertisement and through franchisee. Also please provide information whether a student who has done M.Phil from TGOU is eligible for Ph. D programme at other universities.

7. Norms of recognition of management programme , please refer my  RTI application for details

PIO's reply: The DEC clearly mentions the name of programme alongwith its duration and eligibility on

the recognition letters. Also as and when any complain representation is received the clarification is

sought from the Institution concerned.

My comment: This is wrong reply. In this question I have quoted DEC handbook where it has mentioned that any institute offering management programme should take entrance and GD first from students and work experience should be also taken into consideration. I asked "Please provide mechanism DEC has adopted to check whether institutes are following the guideline/ norms. The above mentioned answer does not have any relation to this question. None of the institute/ universities conduct entrance exam and interview for offering MBA and management programme (exceptions are only Open Universities like IGNOU, YCMOU, KSOU). The PIO should be penalised for providing wrong information and should be directed to provide correct information. Please provide me entire observation and check report DEC has done to ensure the students offering management programme has followed this guideline.

8.      As per the norms prescribed on website, minimum duration of the distance learning MBA should be 3 years however almost all universities offering it in 1 year (under the name executive MBA), 2 years and 2.5 years (even IGNOU self has duration of  2 ½ years). Please provide details on mechanism adopted to monitor the violation and action taken so far alongwith institute’s name, action taken, date of action taken.

PIO’s Reply: As already mentioned above in response to question 7 above, the DEC clearly mentions the name of programme alongwith its duration on the recognition letters. In addition the DEC is considering a proposal on uniformity of duration of MBA programme.

My comment: The reply is wrong and misguiding. The DEC clearly says that management programme in distance learning should be of 3 years minimum then there is no question of setting uniformity, it is already set. Many institute and universities offer distance learning MBA in 2 years and few institutes including Assam Down Town, Sikkim Manipal offers it in 1 year under the brand name "executive MBA"

The misleading reply possibly indicates that no action taken and not monitored. Please provide me list of the institutes who are not following this guideline, date of such violation recorded, person responsible for monitoring, action taken so far alongwith name of the institutes.

9.      Please provide information on the basis of what approval given to all DEC approved institutes.

PIO’s Reply: The decision on recognition is taken on thg basis of evaluation of the preparedness of concerned institution by the expert committee and then after decision of the DEC Council' the recognition is accorded.

My comment: Here, I wanted details of every institute on what basis they have got recommendation and who recommended it but the answer was short, too general and non explanatory. I need the visiting and recommending committee's full report. Mentioning the committee, person who visited the institutes, all infrastructure including materials, teaching and non teaching faculty available, resources available and their recommendation details.

10. I have asked NOC copy from concerned universities from where the total 26 institutes are affiliated (Who are not a university and recognized by DEC)

Reply: There is no such requirement of NOC as asked by you. Please refer handbook of recognition

for norms and guidelines on recognition available on DEC website www.dec.ac.in, however the hiading

"Recognition of ODL's"

My comment: This reply is wrong and misleading. I have already given extract from the DEC guideline which is I am pasting again here for your reference.

“Other ODL institutions registered as societies/trusts and or privately provided managed institutions/colleges which are affiliated to a university for award of degrees.  Such institutions are required to submit No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the affiliating university for starting distance education at the time of submitting proposal for approval from the DEC.”

Please see highlighted in red which says that such institute must be affiliated to a university for award of degree and required to submit NOC. This indicates that DEC might not have taken NOC so posting this misleading answer.  The PIO must be penalised for providing wrong and misleading information.Kindly provide me copy of the NOC.

Point 11 was repeated (already asked similar question above) so I am not mentioning here

12. Please provide information on infrastructure available, faculty available and inspection report of the DEC with the name of the committee who evaluated the institutes, things and parameters evaluated, finding and recommendation basis for these institutes.

PIO’s reply: There is no such consolidated list available for the same. However the DEC has no objection for you to visit the DEC and see related files for desired information, on any working day with a prior intimation to this office.

My comments: This is denial of information. It is not possible that a body who is in fact supposed to monitor and evaluate an institute before granting recognition cannot have consolidated list.  I am not asking to prepare / create any information, I am asking you to provide me the process documents which should be readily available. And ideally under section 4(2) of the RTI Act, should have been available on DEC website. Knowing the truth that I am from Mumbai, you are asking me to come Delhi for inspection. It is an act of discouraging an applicant to get/ obtain information. Because hardly any institute has all the required infrastructure. I request you to provide me related information.

Distance Education system in India has completely rotten. I do not see any reason to allow more institutes (the current, private universities) when the existing institutes are sufficient to cater the people's need. There is a huge wrongdoing in Distance Education Council. I am waiting for final reply including to this appeal. After that, as usual, I will file second appeal if I do not get correct reply and if action is not taken and as a final option need to drag UGC, DEC and ministry of HRD to honourable Supreme Court of India for correcting this rotten system which is playing with people's academic life.

Regards

Govind

--
______________________________
"The world suffers a lot. Not because of the violence of bad people,
But because of the silence of good people!"

--Napoleon

Govind- +91-9960704146
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/hrgovind
Blog: http://simplygovind.blogspot.com

professional blog: http://speakhr.blogspot.com

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