Foreigners Get Permanent Jobs

Mohammed Younus :

Defying nationality laws under the Indian Constitution as well as academic criteria, five foreign nationals have managed to get into permanent service and that too in a higher learning institution, and have continued in service for the past five years. The five foreign nationals are faculty members of various wings of the University of Hyderabad (UoH), holding top positions. A query raised under the Right to Information Act (RTI) revealed that these faculty members were appointed during the period 2007-2010, though four of them had mentioned their nationality as Indian.

Telangana RTI Forum president said that despite several representations to the university no action had been taken in this matter

Ironically, they all continue to hold their posts even as information about the discrepancy reached the Ministry of Human Resource Development more than a year ago. As per the information obtained under RTI, Dr S Naresh Babu (Biochemistry), Dr T Sarada Devi (Plant Sciences), Dr Mahadev Kalyankar (Medical Sciences) and Dr Vineet C P Nair (Computer Sciences) had wrongly mentioned their nationality as ‘Indian’, even though three of them enjoy the citizenship of USA and another Australian.

The fifth one, Dr Jagan Pongubala, also a citizen of USA, however, did mention his real nationality. Interestingly, the Registrar wrote a letter to the HRD Ministry in June 2014 mentioning that the University had noticed that the faculty members were having OCI (Overseas Citizenship of India), but were appointed on a permanent basis. The letter further mentions that the UGC rule position on this with regard to Central Universities is that such faculty members can be employed only for a short period.

However, Telangana RTI Forum president G Tirupathi Yadav, who obtained this information, said that despite several representations to the university authorities no action had been taken in this matter. There were several other irregularities in the university, he said and stressed the need for a CBI enquiry into all the appointments made during the past few years. The Vice Chancellor and other authorities had allegedly shown helplessness in taking action against the ‘fake Indian nationals’, citing various reasons.

It was a clear case of fraud and breach of citizenship laws, he maintained and reiterated that his forum would lodge a complaint with the HRD ministry. Legal expert and PG College of Law principal Gali Vinod Kumar said that foreign nationals could not be given a permanent job in India until and unless they acquired Indian nationality. “We do not have any constitutional provision of dual citizenship as of now. However, in some cases NRIs and OCIs are given facilities of one-time clearance to attract them for business and investment in India.”

As per the DoPT (Department of Personnel and Training) guidelines, “Appointment of non-Indians to civil posts under the Government of India should be made only in very exceptional circumstances for short periods, in fields where Indian experts are not available. Such appointments would be on contract.”

B V R Mohan Reddy's Advice

Noted entrepreneur, businessman and NASSCOM chairman B V R Mohan Reddy, on the occasion of workshop ‘Education and Employment’ organised by Metro India, said that change has become very quick these days. He advised the students to capture the opportunities from ever changing world because the predictability of change has come down unlike in the past. Citing instances from Industrial Revolution in past centuries, he said that after the ICT revolution across the globe, the industry has been bringing in change every year.

“Though the technology disrupts the way of life it leads to opportunities,” he said, further adding, “Learning was not an event but a continuous process and does not stops with a teacher but teacher is a good way of learning.” Continuing his inspiring speech, he advised the students to learn continuously and by all ways possible observing that government only can provide an ecosystem for growth and learning.

He advised the students to stick to the five points in their journey of success that include challenging the status quo, being persuasive, ability to take risks, working in a team and open mindedness. He expressed his hope that by the year 2022 India would be the place for largest working population of age between 25 to 50 years. He said that if proper employment opportunities are not available for them it would be disaster rather than a dividend.

Stating that the T-Hub initiative by the State government would prove to be the best incubation centre for entrepreneurs and start-ups in the future he said that innovative brains are always in demand. He congratulated the gathering, most of which comprised computer science engineers, that the present era youth were witnessing a remarkable change in every stream of life.

He asked the students to catch the pace of change to be recognised and to be able to sustain in the growth market. Only those who can understand the fast moving world in time can be able to prove their presence otherwise they would be pushed down the ladder of growth, he observed.

Turf War of TSPSC and APPSC

A day after the Telangana Public Service Commission (TSPSC) released its maiden job notification, it accused its Andhra Pradesh counterpart of intentionally trespassing into the confidential section of TSPSC and occupying it.

The TSPSC has built a case against APPSC and has urged the State government to evict it from the Commission’s building for maintaining congenial atmosphere. According to TSPSC officials, a case of trespassing and ‘theft’/‘missing’ of files have also been registered with the Begum Bazar Police Station on Friday

The TSPSC has built a case against APPSC and has urged the State government to evict it from the Commission’s building for maintaining congenial atmosphere. According to TSPSC officials, a case of trespassing and ‘theft’/‘missing’ of files have also been registered with the Begum Bazar Police Station on Friday. The Commission officials alleged that the APPSC officials were not complying with the understanding reached by top officials of both the Public Service Commissions in June this year.

Telangana PSC member C Vithal said, “by the time we reached office, the in-charge of our confidential section came to us complaining that APPSC officials have broken open the section and several files have gone missing from the section. We have directed the secretary to lodge a police complaint.” He said that as per the understanding in the form of agreement between both the commissions it was decided that 2nd and 3rd floors are allotted to TSPSC and 4th, 5th floors for APPSC.

“We have instructed TSPSC section officials to completely make use of the 2nd and 3rd floor sections as per the agreements between both the commissions earlier,” he said. He said that by trespassing into the confidential section, entry to which is much restricted even for our employees, APPSC officials have created a security and confidentiality risk to important files pertaining to notifications and other stuff.

“We will now recommend the State government to shift APPSC from this building as every immovable asset here belongs to Telangana State as per the AP Reorganization Act,” he said. The Commission member said TSPSC would approach the State Reorganisation Committee to take necessary steps for shifting APPSC from the building because they pose threat to the functioning of TSPSC as long as they stay here.

“It may create a chaotic situation in the future as we have to release more notifications in the coming days and maintaining secrecy or confidentiality will be a challenge for us,” he observed. He said that before June 2, 2014 the then government has allotted some floors to AP and others to Telangana Commission, but objections were raised against that. Later a new understanding was signed between the two Commissions and Governor E S L Narasimhan welcomed it.

On the other hand, TSPSC Employees Union president Pawan Kumar Goud said that though higher-ups of APPSC agreed to co-operate, a few officials including the additional secretary and section officers from APPSC were deliberately creating ruckus. He said TSPSC does not have a strong room like their counterpart APPSC to preserve important files and examination papers. He said employees of TSPSC would start shifting to the allotted floors as per the agreement.

He alleged that APPSC officials wanted them to react rudely to build a case in support of Section 8 of the AP Reorganization Act. “But, we don’t want to do that,” he said.

Current Distribution of Floors at PSC building

-Sections of both the Commissions spread across all the five floors

-TSPSC does not have Strong Room.

-About 34 sections and 120 staff members of TSPSC spread across four floors

-As per the latest understanding 2nd and 3rd floors go to Telangana and 4th, 5th floors are allotted to AP

-Despite two months of agreement it is not implemented

-Police case against tress-passing filed in Begum Bazar police station

Traffic Norms for Schools

Mohammed Younus :

In the light of accidents involving children, mostly near school premises the traffic police department along with the school education department has stipulated certain fresh norms for school managements. Besides deploying additional traffic police officials, the department has asked school managements to deploy school cadets or students leaders for traffic management during peak hours.

Most of the nearly 3,000 schools in the city are following the traffic police instructions and deploying volunteers headed by Physical Education Teachers (PETs) during the opening and closing times of the schools. Traffic Police Additional Commissioner Jitendar said lack of awareness about road safety norms among school children was resulting in accidents, including some fatal. “In the past two years, few accidents involving school children have shattered the conscience of people and traffic department has taken it up as a challenge to bring about a meaningful change,” he said.

The additional commissioner (traffic) said, “Schools need to have open space for parking, display sign boards of school zone, zebra crossing in front of schools, speed level signs, no horn zone besides checking the health of the school vehicle driver regularly.” As per the norms school buses must have first aid box, safety grills at windows, an escort and no extra seating be permitted in the bus.

Apart from this the traffic police have been training the school children and staff about safety precautions on roads. In the year 2014-15 about 1.20 lakh school kids have been trained during the previous year and it is still going on. Traffic Police Inspector M Srinivasulu of Traffic Training Institute said that general signs of traffic, norms, rules and precautions are taught to the school kids. Besides this several hundred parents and guardians have also been trained on traffic rules.

District Education Officer (DEO) of Hyderabad B Somi Reddy said that the education department gives permission only after the traffic police clearances are issued. If we find any discrepancy in the implementation of traffic norms stipulated by traffic police we take proper action against the erring school managements. “We send notices to the schools and give them time to resurrect the discrepancy, in case of regular offence the permission of the schools may be cancelled”, said Somi Reddy.

Norms for schools

-Schools with large open spaces should allow the parking inside

-They should erect sufficient number of traffic signage boards

-As per the provisions of State Public Safety (measures) enforcement Act – 2013, the managements have to provide access control measures including IP based CCTV for effective regulation/monitoring/ensuring safety of children

-Autorickshaws must not to carry more than 6 children

-Schools to inform parents through a circular

-Review during parents meeting

Other figures
Number of schools in city	3,037
Number of school children	10.47 lakh
Number of vehicles	32 lakh
Population of city	About 90 lakh

Special drive
Autos carrying excess children	1,794 cases booked
Under-age driving	81
Counselling	8,814

Major Cause of Traffic Woes...

By Mohammed Younus

Lack of coordination seems to be the major cause of chaos in the management of city traffic and maintenance of roads in Hyderabad which has developed into a cosmopolitan city over a period of time.

Road safety has become a big challenge for the authorities these days even as efforts have been in place for the traffic management and safety of citizens. While the traffic police have been making all its efforts to ease the huge vehicular movement in the city, other aspects are hampering its work.

City Traffic Additional Commissioner Jitender said that traffic management in city carried out in three ways that includes enforcement, education and engineering of the roads.

He said that though the number of fatal accidents has come down over the past three years nevertheless the accidents’ figure was very high. “Percentage of road accidents in and around city has come down by 20 but it can be brought to lower level only if all the concerned departments work in coordination”, he added.

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is responsible for maintaining and upkeep of about 8,000 KM or roads in its limits. Few kilometers of roads come under National Highways Authority.

GHMC Engineer in Chief Dhan Singh claimed that major roads in city were looked after by the National Highways Authorities. “Whatever we are ought to do we do for the laying of roads. Though an average life of a tar coal road is four years it cannot sustain for such long period in urban areas as lot of digging and other activities occur in cities.”

On the other hand illegal encroachments on the foot paths meant for pedestrians also lead to congestions and traffic issues and in some cases accidents, he added. There is a lack of coordination between various departments.

GHMC Chief Engineering Suresh Kumar however opined that the road safety of the citizens cannot be directly linked to bad roads. He rather said that city planning was most important to ensure the road safety.

“We have older sewerage, electricity and water services underground and if we extend the roads on the floor these services come in the middle of the current roads and that leads to various other issues” he said.

Curbing Road Accidents

Mohammed Younus :

Traffic Police is creating awareness and educating the masses on ways to minimise road accidents by adopting state-of-the-art technology and also bring down traffic violations in the city. With two of its Traffic Training Institutions (TTI) taking lead in the training and education part, the department has been overseeing the enforcement of modern techniques in traffic management. Traffic police authorities are taking up the growing vehicle numbers as a challenge and implementing the rules chalked out for traffic management in a non-contact manner.

Additional Commissioner Traffic Jitender said that more focus was given to the offences that affect the safety of general public. He said, “We generally keep a check on cell-phone driving, over speeding, red-light jumping, ziz-zag driving, rash driving, drunken driving and other such offences that directly affects the safety of others.” He said that to stop the offenses the traffic police was issuing challans to the offenders through an e-challan system without causing the traffic snarls at the place of offense.

We collect the data of offenders from our CCTV cameras and hand cameras given to the traffic sleuths and send the offenders an e-challan. We also conduct breath analyser test every week to check for the drunken driving cases, he informed. The city has an integrated signaling system, only one among any city of the country, to manage the easy flow of the traffic, he said.On the other hand TTI Goshamahal Sub Inspector M Srinivasulu said that training is arranged for the cops and for the general people by the institute.

“Police officials of all ranks coming from other branches of policing to traffic undergo a week-long training at our institute”, he said. He informed that the institute also indulges in arranging counseling for the offenders of drunken driving, rash driving and over speeding on the roads.

Schools, Exploitation and Parents

By Mohammed Younus

Parents up in arms against big loot in schools

Thanks to the poor checking mechanism and lacunae in the implementation of laws, private school managements in the city are raking in a moolah and exploiting parents in the name of various categories of fees.  There exists a large gap between the prescribed fees by the government and the ones collected by private school managements , and year on enhancement in fees has become a pain in the neck for parents for decades now.

Fees collected by the private school managements are unimaginable for a common man and unaffordable for the well-to- do as well. The high handedness of the private school managements in city has reached new levels with an average 100 to 200 per cent increase in five years. Though the steep rise in fees by private managements resulted in strong activism from parents, it also simultaneously exposed the hollow regulatory measures being implemented by State education department.

Hyderabad Schools’ Parents’ Association member M Subrahmanyam said that the school managements started enhancing fees exponentially from the year 2007. “In 2007, most of the city schools have increased fees by 35 per cent, contrary to the annual 15 per cent hike, and this forced several parents to speak out strongly against the exploitation.”

In 2009, the parents’ group approached the government complaining about the rampant hike in fees by private schools in the city. Mounting pressure forced government to issue GO 91 during the same year directing the school managements not to charge more than Rs 5,000 as caution deposit. The Hyderabad Schools’ Parents’ Association member said most of the 1,400 private school managements in the city did not follow what was up held by the High Court and by State government through a GO 42 in 2010.

He lamented that year after year, these school managements have been increasing fees without holding consultations with the respective parents-teachers Associations or government authorities. Another representative of the Parents’ group Ashish Naredi said almost four government orders were in place regulating the affairs of the private schools, but most of them continue to be ignored. He said, “As per GO MS 1, 1994, no school can earn more than 5 per cent profit and 50 per cent of the fee collected must be paid as salaries of teachers. Besides these, schools should have to submit their annual reports and audited statements of accounts every year.”

Though this GO has been in place for two decades, the school managements continue to exploit parents by enhancing fees and flouting the norms under the nose of government, he lamented. In 2013, the then Hyderabad district collector M K Meena made it compulsory for private managements to display their fee structure on flexes in front of their offices, but it was challenged in High Court and the matter is still pending. Hyderabad District Education Officer B Somi Reddy said upon complaints from various groups, officials from the education department would visit and examine schools as per the powers vested by GO MS 1 and 42, which have been charging more fees from parents. He said regional joint directors would crack the whip on school managements from this Monday and action would be initiated against erring school managements.

Parents’ association member Subrahmanyam sought to know as to why State government was not showing any interest in resolving this issue when it could fix the maximum retail price for the sale of liquor in the state. He said, “This has to be stopped right here, if not, it will spoil the lives of middle class people and even affluent classes.” Besides all this, strict uniform codes have been cited as a contributing factor for the benefit of the managements. Some local schools are alleged to be in deal with suppliers, sometimes they themselves turn suppliers selling own uniforms to raise money. So is the case with the supply of books as well in the case of certain schools. The discounts offered by some of the publishers are ranging up to 35 per cent thus making it to be most lucrative part of running schools as a business.

 Fee structures in some schools 

CHIREC International School (Nursery)
Annual fee : Rs 75,000 
Term fee : Rs 19,500
Activity fee : Rs 19,500

Meridian Educational Society (1st Standard)
Term 1 tuition fee : Rs 23,000
Term 2 tuition fee : Rs 20,781
Total amount including Various heads paid : Rs 1.71 lakhs

GLENDALE (KG to 10th standard)
Application & Registration fee   : Rs 1,000

One term fee :

Rs 1 lakh up to 5th,
Rs 75k for 6th,7th
Rs 25K for 8th 9th

Caution deposit :  Rs 10,000 for all

Oakridge International School
Tuition fee : 

Rs 74,400 for up to 3rd standard,
Rs 90,000 for 9th and 10th

Term 1 fee :

Rs 59,300 for preprimary Students,
Rs 63,800 and Rs 70,500 for Class VII to X

Demands of parents

• Year on year fee hike must be curbed
• Schools must take permission before increasing fees
• State government must ensure the implementation of laws concerned
• Particular laws must be strengthened to ensure quality of education

GOs pertaining to the regulation of schools

GO MS No 246 (1987):
Community participation in the form of Parents Teachers Association must
Implementation status: Marginal
Reason: No initiative from government

GO MS No 1 (1994):
Maximum profit only 5 percent, 50 percent salary must be spent on salaries, submission of audited accounts yearly
Implementation status: Being violated for years
Reason: No initiative from government

GO MS No 91 (2009):
Application fee Rs 100, Registration fee Rs 500
Refundable caution deposit Rs 5,000; no other fee to be charged under any head
Implementation status: Severely violated 
Reason: Sub judice

GO MS No 42 (2010):
Upheld various clauses of GO 91
Implementation status: No implementation 
Reason: Stay on few clauses of GO 91