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The Wintech drama: Calcutta students seek refund; company mum

Rifat Jawaid in Calcutta

A media blitz marked Wintech Computer's arrival in Calcutta in January, with the company claiming it would conduct attractive IT courses at low fees.

Aspiring students made a beeline for the company's regional centres in the city. Today, all the training centres in Calcutta have been shut down, with students demanding a refund of their fees.

The company, meanwhile, has again started advertising in local newspapers to resurrect its operations in the city, asking existing students to submit their papers for a free course. But the aggrieved parties only want their fees refunded.

Saurav Bhartia, a student at Wintech's Salt Lake unit, said: "I was attracted to Wintech primarily because it promised to offer the best practical facilities at relatively low fees. They first asked me to pay Rs 29,500 for the two-year course in e-commerce, but agreed to slash Rs 10,000 after some bargaining."

"However, this did not strike any of us as odd because of the company's large-scale publicity. None of us could ever have realised that a company of such repute could do such a thing. Six months after enrolment, things began to worsen. Contrary to the promises of online practical training, what we saw was that the Internet never functioned. Faculty members would often miss classes," alleged Bhartia.

According to him, students were taken aback one morning in July upon seeing a notice of suspension of all classes.

"The management assured us that all shortcomings would be offset within a month, failing which all students were to be refunded their fees. However, this did not happen. When we approached Wintech officials, they refused to refund our money. They said the Bombay office would have to approve that. This prompted us to seek legal recourse and we lodged an FIR with the Salt Lake police station. Luckily, our decision to seek legal remedy paid off and we were refunded our money a fortnight after we complained to the police," he said.

However, not all students have been as fortunate as Bhartia. Aggrieved students still visit Wintech's regional headquarters at Hazra Road every day hoping to get their admission fees back. But there is no one to heed their complaints. Wintech's phone lines have been disconnected by the telephone authorities for non-payment of bills and its senior staff cannot be located.

Students at Wintech's Jadavpur centre were not as restrained as their counterparts at Salt Lake. Dissatisfied over the poor teaching environment, they went berserk in September.

Enraged students smashed window panes and almost beat up the faculty members. Prompt police intervention prevented things from getting beyond control. This centre, like the others in Calcutta, has since been out of operation.

Shubham Dutta had to borrow money when his daughter Gargi expressed her desire to take up a Web designing course at Wintech. Gargi said she could never have been able to do a similar course at other institutes due to the high fees. Today, her father is clueless how he will repay the loan he had taken for his daughter's education at Wintech.

"We approached the Calcutta police headquarters with complaints against Wintech. But we do not see any chances of getting our money back since the company seems to have wound up its operations in Calcutta," said Gargi.

The problems grew just before Durga Puja when the company's Bombay offices were raided following complaints of software piracy. This caused much worry at the Calcutta centres and the company declared a vacation from September 29, with the promise of resuming classes on October 9. However, this did not happen.

"We were then told that classes would resume from October 16. That too did not happen. On confirming from the zonal office, we discovered that the company had decided to keep the centres closed for another week apprehending more raids," claimed A S Choudhury, another Wintech student.

Choudhury too complained of poor quality of courseware and infrastructure. According to him, students had to make do with lack of required software. He said he was lured by Wintech's promise of quality education and placement assurances.

"Our repeated requests to fix the software fell on deaf ears. These problems led to unrest amongst students. We lodged FIRs at various police stations and got in touch with the area manager and one of the centre heads. However, they feigned ignorance," he said.

"Some consolation for us came in the form of three persons from the Bombay office who turned up for discussion. Students demanded full refund of their fees, but the Wintech bosses expressed their inability to do so. Later, the Calcutta police arrested the three visiting Wintech staff members from Bombay," Choudhury said.

The three arrested employees are still in police custody (case#138/2000) at the anti-cheating cell at the Calcutta police headquarters.

However, the arrest of the Wintech employees is not enough to pacify the students. With Wintech officials unavailable for comment, they have no idea what will happen now.

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