Armed with a new law to rein in private engineering colleges that do not deliver what they promise, the West Bengal University of Technology (WBUT) has created the post of an “inspector of colleges” to keep tabs on these institutions.

“We want to intensify the process of inspection of all our affiliated private engineering colleges to ensure that each one of them offers quality education,” university registrar Rafiqul Islam said.

In the true tradition of inspection raj, teams will routinely monitor infrastructure, quality of faculty and education, and placement opportunities.

Higher education minister Sudarshan Ray Chaudhury had said while tabling the West Bengal University of Technology Amendment Bill on July 2 that each of the 55-odd private engineering colleges in the state would henceforth be under the scanner.

While officials of the higher education department say they are certain the quality of education would improve, academics and parents of students saddled with useless degrees doubt the effectiveness of the system. “It is not as if the old laws do not have any provision for inspection of colleges. The problem is that norms have never been followed,” said a senior faculty member of a government engineering college.

According to him, monitoring the academic activities of private engineering colleges was the responsibility of the WBUT. The All India Council for Technical Education, which is the apex regulatory body, is supposed to ensure that the quality of infrastructure is good and the administration above board.

“But both have failed to discharge their responsibilities properly, and that’s why we have a situation like this,” the faculty member said.

Student unrest is common in private engineering colleges because of the failure of these institutions to fulfil their pre-admission placement promises. The quality of teaching and the state of infrastructure are questioned, too.

“An inspection team’s main responsibility is to assess all these factors. But what’s the guarantee that action will be taken against colleges if their standards are not up to the mark?” asked a guardian.

She said there would be “perceptible improvement” in the quality of education only if the authorities did not compromise while giving permission to set up colleges.