ISLAMABAD, March 7: The Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) has imposed a penalty of Rs25 million on five institutions for advertising un-accredited engineering programmes.

In its order, a CCP bench comprising chairperson Rahat Kaunain Hassan and members Abdul Ghaffar and Dr Shahzad Ansar said the terms “accredited by PEC” implied that an engineering programme had effectively met the norms and procedures prescribed by the Pakistan Engineering Council and that only the students possessing degrees of accredited programmes could get registered with the PEC as engineers.

The order has been passed against the University of Faisalabad, University of South Asia (USA), Wah Engineering College (Wah Cantt), Synthetic Fibre Development and Application Centre, and Institute of Business Management.

The bench said the “accredited status” held value for both the engineering institution and the student. Therefore, claims to the effect should not be made in a casual manner.

Show-cause notices on the matter had been issued to 27 institutions, but the CCP said the institutions could not be treated equally. Therefore, it divided the institutions into three categories.

Those claiming to have been approved/recognised/ permitted by the PEC in respect of introduction of new programmes were put in the first category. In the second category were the universities that claimed to have been accredited by the PEC and ensured that all its graduates had an accredited engineering programme degree. In the third category were institutions that claimed to be accredited by the PEC but whose graduates had obtained degrees of un-accredited programmes.

The CCP took a lenient view in respect of the institutions falling in the first two categories. However, it said the institutions falling in the third category (whose students are often unable to get themselves registered with the PEC) had violated the rules and could not be let off without penalty.