BIE raps colleges for pathetic labs.

As many as 3,131 junior colleges across the state are ill-equipped to conduct practical classes for Intermediate students. The inspections carried out by the officials of the Board of Intermediate Education (BIE) revealed that about 80 per cent of the junior colleges in the state have no laboratories at all, while the laboratories in most of the colleges are inadequately equipped.

A large number of corporate colleges, which collect thousands of rupees in fees from students, figured in the list. Though the BIE has issued notices to these colleges in December 2010, the managements failed to comply with the norms on laboratories. The board has fixed a deadline of September 15 for managements to comply with the norms. It warned the colleges that they would have to forfeit their corpus fund of `2 lakh and face disaffiliation, if they failed to comply with the norms within the deadline.

The BIE secretary, Ms A. Vani Prasad, directed the managements to update the board on the measures taken by them to set up full-fledged laboratories by August 31 and send a compliance report by September 15. While East Godavari topped the list with 225 colleges in which laboratories are ill-equipped, Visakhapatnam stands next with 197 colleges, followed by Warangal 183 and Nellore 176.

Hyderabad accounts for 147 such colleges and Ranga Reddy, 127. Other districts include Adila-bad (95), Anantapur (99), Chittoor (106), Kadapa (108), Guntur (76), Karimnagar (158), Kha-mmam (147), Krishna (129), Kurnool (144), Mahbubnagar (128), Medak (97), Nalgonda (137), Nizamabad (98), Prakasam (163), Srika-kulam (133), Vizianaga-ram (95) and West Godavari (153).

Source : DC