AEPC’s secretary general resigns from IAM Board

Questioning the validity of degrees and alleging serious irregularities in training being imparted at the Institute of Apparel Management (IAM), IAS officer Puneet Kumar has resigned from IAM’s board of governors.

Kumar, who is the secretary general of the Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC), was a member of the board of governors of IAM. In his resignation letter addressed to the IAM chairman, he has mentioned HT Education’s story of May 13, 2015, as the immediate reason for his resignation.

“Recently, I have come across a very damaging news report in Hindustan Times dated May 13, 2015, which says that IAM is issuing degrees in violation of the UGC norms merely under the garb of the MoU with Mewar University, which too doesn’t have the jurisdiction to award degrees to students of IAM for the course run by them, and therefore, IAM, led by its CEO, is playing with the future of the students,” Kumar said in the letter which was also marked to the minister of state for textiles, secretary and joint secretary (textiles). The AEPC is a body of exporters of the country and the two institutes under its aegis include Apparel Training and Design Centre (ATDC) and IAM. AEPC gets an IAS officer as its secretary general on deputation from the government.

His letters also reveal that IAM is on the list of bogus institutes of the All India Council for Technical Education.

A reply by Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA), under RTI, also reveals that running an institute (IAM) in the building allotted to AEPC in Gurgaon is in violation of HUDA norms. “HUDA hasn’t granted any permission for running the institute of Apparel Management,” says the response to an RTI filed by Rajeev Kapoor, MD of Affordable Exports Private Limited, an apparel export company.

Repeated efforts to get in touch with Virendra Uppal, chairman, AEPC remained futile as he didn’t respond to calls and messages.