ON PAPER: The father of one of the students on Tuesday displaying a letter issued by Chaitanya College of Nursing some time ago, which says that the college has been recognised by the Indian Nursing Council. — Photo: K. Gopinathan

Bangalore: "How is your newspaper article going to help my plight," snaps Unnikrishnan Pillai, father of one of the students of Chaitanya College of Nursing. Or is it Kiran College of Nursing? The students themselves do not know in which of the institutions they are studying.

"We were enrolled in Chaitanya College of Nursing, but when it was time for our exams, our hall ticket said Kiran College of Nursing," says Selvaraj Kumar, a student who was part of an anxious crowd that had turned up on Tuesday on the campus to collect transfer certificates following a High Court directive.

This confusion has been prevailing for some time now ever since the management failed to renew its affiliation to the Indian Nursing Council. "It has not done so since 2005," says Mr. Pillai, a retired professor from NSS College of Engineering, Palakkad. The distraught father refuses to take the management's promise to return the fee and documents at face value.

A majority of the students are from Kerala. A number of these families have borrowed heavily to put their children through nursing school. "We have had to use our life savings as well as borrow to pay the kind of fees asked by the college," says Philipose, another long-suffering parent.

Apart from the fee, which is about Rs. 1 lakh, most end up paying as much as 50 per cent of that as commission to agents both in Bangalore and back home in Kerala. Mr. Pillai claims to have been duped by a lawyer from Changanacheri in Kerala. Another was told by no less than a pastor from Thiruvalla that it was a good college.

The youngsters have not had it any easier either. The second year students have not had a single class since the beginning of the year. When they went on a strike, the management allegedly hired local thugs to beat them up. "They even hit the women," says Vishal, a second year student. Two students were brutally beaten up and had to be hospitalised.

Jaykumar Pillai, a technical assistant with the Navy, has been shuttling back and forth between Mumbai and Bangalore to take care of matters with his son. "I have been going and coming every week. I go to Mumbai for a few days, work, and then come back here again to deal with this."

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