Southern States - Tamil Nadu   

NRI engg. admissions under scrutiny

By K. Ramachandran

CHENNAI Oct. 3. Surprised at the large number of ``doubtful credentials'' of students admitted to self-financing engineering colleges under the NRI (non-resident India) quota, the Anna University has set up a three-member committee to scrutinise all admissions made under this category.

The Vice-Chancellor, E. Balagurusamy, said the committee, which included two experts from outside the university, would verify whether all NRI admissions were made in conformity with State Government guidelines such as passport records of the candidate's NRI sponsor and authentication from India's foreign mission, from where the candidate hailed.

While over 800 students had been admitted under the NRI category, the university authorities were doubtful about the authenticity of more than 100 admissions.

Prof. Balagurusamy said the committee had met once and scrutinised NRI admission certificates from 25 colleges. ``Speaking generally, we feel that a lot of certificates look suspicious, as the records and accompanying mandatory documents were not in order.'' Admissions made flouting any of the university regulations and qualification requirements or the government's guidelines would be invalid and such students would have to discontinue the engineering programme.

One college group in Chennai recently wrote to the university stating that more than 55 students admitted under the NRI quota had ``discontinued for personal reasons''.

Perhaps, the Vice-Chancellor said, the college, after seeing the university's announcement about invalidating admissions made in violation of norms, was taking cover under the pretext of ``discontinuance''. He found it surprising that so many students had dropped out in the beginning of the year itself.

Another problem

The university was also concerned at a related development. A college group had admitted ``unqualified students'' through an ``agency''. The issue came to light only after the students themselves approached the university, volunteering information on how they secured admissions, although they did not have the qualifying marks.

``We found that there was a separate agency wooing students promising them admissions to private colleges despite the lack of qualification. After the university's warning that such admissions would not be recognised, the students came to us and revealed the facts. We cross-checked it and took up the issue with the police, who have taken follow-up action, including arresting one or two persons involved in the business,'' the Vice-Chancellor said.

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