4 days ago
Pvt colleges in a bind over fire NOC demand from Inter board for affiliation
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Hyderabad: Despite the new academic year beginning, a majority of private Intermediate colleges have still did not received affiliation from the Telangana Board of Intermediate Education (TGBIE) due to their failure to produce the mandatory no-objection certificate (NOC) from the fire department.
While there are about 1,200 private unaided junior colleges in the state, only 247 have been granted affiliation till now. Last year, 1165 such colleges were granted affiliation.
"Until last year, only those colleges located in buildings above 15 metres were asked to produce a fire NOC. This year, however, they are asking buildings above six metres to produce it. To get an NOC, we need to comply with certain norms such as external staircases and open spaces around buildings to accommodate fire vehicles.
How can we get it now?" asked a member of the Telangana State Private Junior Colleges Management Association (TPJMA) who has been running a college for the last 12 years.
They said Intermediate board officials were asking for an NOC under the Telangana Fire Service Act, 1999, without taking GO 29 released in 2016 into account, which mandates a fire NOC only for buildings above 15 metres. Alternatively, managements said they were asked to produce a document proving GO 29 is in force.
by Taboola
by Taboola
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Questioning the logic behind such demands when more than 75% admissions have been done in a majority of Intermediate colleges in Telangana, they said that the board was playing with the lives students, staff and managements.
"We got to know about this requirement only when our applications was rejected. How fair is this? Many students joined assuming we have the required affiliation as we have been running for years now.
Will the govt be able to accommodate all our students if we don't get affiliation at a later stage?" asked another correspondent.
Board officials, meanwhile, said they were going to wait till the end of June for colleges to submit the required documents.
"Not just private colleges, but we are ensuring that even govt colleges have fire safety measures in place. We have been clearing about 60 to 70 applications daily. We will give colleges time till the month-end to comply with requirements to get affiliation," TGBIE secretary Krishna Aditya told TOI, adding that of the 3,200 junior colleges, including govt and those under various societies, about 1,500 have been granted affiliation till date.
