RAJKOT, April 21: Keshod's N P Arts and Commerce College principal Yagnesh Thakker has alleged that the Saurashtra University authorities have collected Rs 2,000 from every principal of the affiliated colleges of the university for providing hospitality and entertainment to a University Grants Commission team who visited Rajkot in March.The University Grants Commission team visited Saurashtra University for deciding on the amount of grants to be released through the Ninth Five Year Plan for every college under the university.
Yagnesh Thakker alleged that the university authorities kept the team in three-star hotels in the city and spent extravagantly for their hospitality. It was to meet this huge expenditure that the university authorities sent some persons to every college principal to collect Rs 2000.
Thakker has written a letter to vice-chancellor Harshadbhai Joshi about this and requested him to order a probe into the matter.
He has also alleged that instead of keeping the team in university guest house or making any other such arrangement, the authorities put them in costly hotels and spent exorbitant amount for their hospitality in Rajkot.Yagnesh also questioned the move of collecting money from the principals and not from the college managements.
However, when contacted, Saurashtra University's pro-vice-chancellor Kalpakbhai Trivedi vehemently denied the matter and said, "no such thing has happened and we did not send any one to collect money from principals of the affiliated colleges."
But P M Joshi, principal of the Madhwani College in Porbandar said "the collection did take place. The university has about 102 affiliated colleges of which some 40 colleges are getting UGC grants and only those colleges were approached by persons from the university for money."
Joshi, who is also the president of the Principals' Association of University Colleges on being said that the university authorities have denied the matter, said if they have not collected the money then some unauthorised persons must have been involved in the collection. It is the university's duty to identify the persons, he remarked.
