Siliguri, April 2: The SFI today threatened to shut down the Siliguri ITI and stop admissions to the Electrical Broad Based Basic Training course if its passouts’ applications for government jobs were not accepted.

“The admission procedure for the course starts from mid-April but we will not allow the institution to go ahead with the process until the state government finds a solution to the problems faced by the existing students while applying for government jobs,” Amit Dey, the Darjeeling district general secretary of the SFI, said today.

On Tuesday, students of the BBBT course blocked Sevoke Road for more than two hours, demanding a solution to their problems, and have not been attending classes since then.

“The one-year electrical BBBT course is an upgraded version of the earlier two-year electrician course. The central government’s National Council for Vocational Training replaced the old course with electrical BBBT in 2005,” said Dey.

“When the new course was introduced, the Centre had promised that different government departments would be communicated about the change and the applications of students with Electrical BBBT for government jobs would be accepted. But advertisements for job vacancies still seek candidates who have completed the Electrician course. Many students with Electrical BBBT certificates had applied for jobs with the railways and the electricity board. But their applications were rejected. We demand that vacancies be advertised in the name of the Electrical BBBT course,” he said..

According to the district general-secretary of the SFI, ITIs in Siliguri and Purulia are the only two institutions in the state, which offer the course.

“We have faxed a memorandum to the chief minister, minister for technical education Chakradhar Maikap and the state director of technical education. We had sought an appointment with Maikap and he will convey the date for talks on April 5,” said Dey.

“If we fail to get confirmation (of the meeting) from the minister on April 5, we will close the institution indefinitely,” he added.

The Siliguri ITI has an SFI-backed student union.

Paritosh Das, the principal of the institution, said: “They (SFI) have not informed me about their decision to stop admissions, so I cannot comment. I had already conveyed the students’ demand to higher authorities in Calcutta.”