All India Private Colleges Employees Union has urged the All India Council for Technical Education to ensure that colleges make staff's salary payment in nationalized banks through ECS and take penal action on colleges, which fail to do so.

AICTE had not taken action to digitalize salaries of teachers or fees of students. Based on the Supreme Court order in a PIL, AICTE had included the word 'ECS (Electronic Clearing System) Payments' through 'Nationalized Banks' in approval process handbook, said KM Karthik, founder of the union.

If the payment of salary is other than through the above modes, AICTE had said it will take departmental/penal action, but there is no precedence. He alleged that AICTE did not have any online grievance redress cell and demanded a hard copy of complaints through posts. Only a handful of the 3,000 engineering colleges had grievance redress committee, he alleged. There was no verification of grievances, which made it easier for colleges to nullify this requirement, he said.