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New Indian Express

Alphons says he and P J Joseph facilitated entry of private professional colleges in Kerala

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: According to former top bureaucrat-turned-Union minister in the first Modi government, K J Alphons aka Alphons Kannanthanam, it was he and P J Joseph, the education minister in the E K Nayanar government in 2000, who surreptitiously facilitated the entry of private professional colleges in Kerala. In his latest book, 'The Winning Formula: 52 Ways to Change Your Life', Alphons reveals that as the then secretary of the higher education department, he went out of the way to issue no-objection certificates (NOCs) to 33 engineering colleges in the private sector and obtained the signature of the minister without knowledge of the cabinet. Later, when Nayanar got to know about it, according to Alphons, it was Joseph's threat to resign from cabinet if any disciplinary action was taken against the bureaucrat that rescued him. In the book, Alphons says he had in fact persuaded the then chairman of the All India Council for Technical Education to surpass the LDF government in issuing approvals. 'When I became the higher education department secretary in Kerala in 2000, over 2 lakh Kerala students were doing engineering, medicine, nursing and MBA outside the state, as there were far too few seats here. In 2000, in the state, there were only 300 seats for MBBS, 3,000 seats for engineering, 700 seats for nursing and a few hundred seats for MBA. I told P J Joseph: our children need to study here and for this we must open up. The minister said: I completely agree with you, but it will never ever be cleared by the LDF's Liaison Committee; it will never ever go up to the cabinet. I told him impetuously: Sir, don't our children have the right to study? I have a simple solution: since you cannot approve the idea without the sanction of the cabinet, I as secretary will issue the sanction,' Alphons writes.