New Delhi: Several coaching centres of FIITJEE, which prepares students for several competitive exams including the Joint Entrance Examination, have shut down across states including Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi-NCR over the past weeks according to several news reports. New safety audit norms introduced by civic bodies and instructors resigning due to unpaid salaries are among the reasons for the shut down, reported The Hindu Business Line.
“FIITJEE would like to emphasise that no centre has been closed as part of its own decision. The current situation arose due to the overnight desertion of the centre by the Centre Managing Partner along with the entire team. This unexpected and sudden departure has caused a temporary disruption,” a press release by the organisation said.
“We assure you that this is a force majeure-type condition, and the present turmoil is temporary. FIITJEE’s officials are actively working to resume operations across all affected locations within a reasonable time frame,” it added.
A report by MoneyControl quoted a parent as saying that an outgoing FIITJEE teacher said that most faculty members were leaving since they had not been paid salaries for several months. Similarly, as per the Business Line, recent safety audits had revealed that some of the coaching institutes and their locations were allegedly “unfit and unsafe”, causing local authorities to seal off the premises.
The Indian Express reported on January 25 that FIITJEE’s coaching institute at Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh shut down in mid-January after parents filed an FIR “accusing the institute of abruptly halting operations and jeopardising their children’s academic preparations”.
In their complaint, parents alleged that teachers at the Ghaziabad centre had not been paid their salaries. The report also quoted a Ghaziabad District School Inspector who said that some of the centres were functioning without proper licenses. According to the same news report, FIITJEE is going through a “financial crisis”, and that staff at many branches have resigned en masse.
The FIITJEE centres that are currently closed include those situated in Delhi’s Laxmi Nagar and Noida Sector 62, as well as branches in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut, Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Varanasi, Bhopal and Andheri, Kandivali, Thane and Navi Mumbai in Maharashtra. FIITJEE has 73 centres across the country.
The shutdowns of FIITJEE centres came just before the first session of the JEE Mains, conducted on January 22, 23, and 24, which serve as the entrance exam for both engineering colleges and the preliminary test for admissions to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).