Aptech under watch in Uttaranchal

Minister says students did not gain

Aptech may be making news in the stock market. But in Uttaranchal, the company is coming under scrutiny yet again.

After running into a title dispute two years ago, Aptech had made a strong comeback by bagging a major contract in Uttaranchal for providing computer education to students at low cost.

Subsequently, the state government signed an MoU with the company to provide computer education at Rs 350 per month per student in 57 degree colleges with computer training being made compulsory in all the 16 polytechnics.

And now, the government has suddenly realised that the Aptech course had failed to provide desirable results as far as computer education in Uttaranchal was concerned. Currently, nearly 2,500 students are taking Aptech courses under the project "shikhar".

When contacted, Uttaranchal Technical Education Minister Hira Singh Bist confirmed the government was gathering information regarding the lapses in the education.

"All the principals of these polytechnics are of the view that students have failed to pick up computer education through Aptech courses," Bist said.

Aptech had run into rough weather hours before the signing the MoU with the state government after Electronic Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL), a Hyderabad-based central government computer company, claimed it had quoted much lower rates in the bidding process, and the contract finally went to Aptech in most of the districts.

The ECIL rate was Rs 162 per month. Prior to coming to Uttaranchal, Aptech had also run into a title dispute.

"We are gathering all information related to Aptech since the company is making Rs 1 crore profit from Uttaranchal every year," Bist said.

When asked whether the government was mulling to scrap the contract with Aptech, Bist said a decision in this regard would be taken at the highest level.

The objective of the project is to impart "world class" and "job oriented" IT education to students of these degree colleges.

Significantly, Aptech had bagged the contract in 11 out of the 13 districts of the state for providing computer education while for only two districts, Hardwar and Udham Singh Nagar, the contract went to ECIL.